Full-Time

Mechanical Engineer

Updated on 9/12/2026

Pivot Robotics

Pivot Robotics

1-10 employees

AI-powered robot-arm automation for high-mix manufacturing

No salary listed

San Francisco, CA, USA

In Person

The role requires work on factory floors and deployment in customer facilities.

Category
Mechanical Engineering (1)
Required Skills
Welding
Assembly
Robotics

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Requirements
  • At least 2 years of experience.
  • Solid mechanical engineering fundamentals and strong computer-aided design skills.
  • Demonstrated experience building real hardware.
  • Willingness to learn robotic grinding and surface finishing.
  • Comfort working on a factory floor.
Responsibilities
  • Design and build parts of grinding and finishing cells, including fixturing, end effectors, mounts, guarding, and mechanical machine components.
  • Turn designs into real hardware through computer-aided design, fabrication, assembly, and iteration.
  • Deploy and debug cells in customer facilities.
  • Develop ownership of increasingly difficult mechanical problems.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience working at a startup and/or participating in deployments.
  • Experience with robot integration, fixturing, or automation.
  • Hands-on fabrication skills, including machining or welding.
  • Exposure to manufacturing or foundry environments.

Pivot Robotics provides AI-powered software that lets standard industrial robotic arms handle high-mix, low-volume manufacturing tasks without reprogramming for each part. Its Proteus system uses computer vision and AI to scan parts, detect defects, and automatically generate grinding paths for tasks like metal surface finishing in foundries. This vision-first approach enables one system to adapt to many part variations, differentiating it from traditional automation that relies on custom programming for each part. The company aims to reduce the U.S. manufacturing labor gap by expanding automation across industries and regions, starting in North America and expanding to global hubs.

Company Size

1-10

Company Stage

Seed

Total Funding

$130K

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

2023

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • 2026 website shows 5k+ parts weekly across major North American foundries.
  • YC job post said its software already ran on 10+ robots at a cast-iron foundry.
  • Company says aerospace-and-defense finishing now extends camera-first autonomy beyond cast iron.

What critics are saying

  • Manufacturing deployments demand uptime; one defective grinding cell destroys trust immediately.
  • Pivot still relies on foundry grinding, a narrow beachhead vulnerable to competitor imitation.
  • If production ramps stall, cash burn hits a tiny 2024 seed-funded team fast.

What makes Pivot Robotics unique

  • Y Combinator W24 backing and San Francisco team built Proteus for foundry grinding.
  • Pivot scans CAD-linked parts and generates robot paths without per-part reprogramming.
  • Production deployments on 10+ robots prove the software handles high-mix manufacturing.

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Benefits

Flexible Work Hours

Company News

Entrackr
Jul 1st, 2024
YC-backed Pivot Robots raises funding from NuVentures

AI startup Pivot Robots has raised funds from early-stage investor NuVentures for an undisclosed amount. Part of Y Combinator’s 2024 cohort.

WTWH Media LLC
May 29th, 2024
Robotics Investments Top $466M In April 2024

Listen to this articleFigure 1: Global Robotics Investment – Trailing 12 Months. Robotics investments reached at least $466 million in April 2024, the result of 36 funding rounds. The April investments figure lagged recent months and was the smallest amount since November 2023. April 2024’s investment total was significantly less than the trailing 12-month average of $1.1 billion (see Figure 1). Providers of collaborative robots scored the two largest rounds. As described in Table 1, Collaborative Robotics’ $100 million Series B round was April’s largest investment

The Business Journals
Apr 3rd, 2024
Here's what you need to know about Y Combinator's 2024 winter batch demo day

Y Combinator seeded more than 250 companies in its current winter batch, which leans heavily into AI. One particular AI subcategory has nearly tripled over the past year.