Mechanical Engineer II

Axon Axon · Enterprise · AZ · 2022 New Ventures

Mechanical Engineer II on Axon's New Ventures team, responsible for designing, building, and iterating on mechanical systems for early-stage exploration and small-batch hardware products. This role involves CAD modeling, material selection, hands-on prototyping, testing, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to assess feasibility and production risk.

What you'd actually do

  1. Independently design and develop mechanical components, assemblies, fixtures, mechanisms, and enclosures for exploratory prototypes and small-batch hardware products.
  2. Create CAD models, drawings, prototype files, and mechanical documentation that support both rapid iteration and clear handoff to fabrication or manufacturing partners.
  3. Select materials, manufacturing methods, finishes, fastening strategies, and assembly approaches that balance speed, cost, durability, manufacturability, and learning goals.
  4. Apply design-for-manufacturability and design-for-assembly principles early, especially for concepts that may transition from prototype to low-volume or small-batch production.
  5. Build, assemble, test, and troubleshoot physical prototypes using hands-on fabrication methods and external prototype vendors when appropriate.

Skills

Required

  • Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or equivalent practical experience
  • 3+ years of relevant experience in mechanical engineering, product design, prototyping, hardware development, or low-volume manufacturing
  • Proficiency with CAD tools and experience creating parts, assemblies, drawings, tolerance-critical features, and prototype- or manufacturing-ready files
  • Hands-on experience building, assembling, testing, and iterating mechanical prototypes
  • Practical understanding of mechanical design fundamentals such as tolerances, material selection, fastening methods, mechanisms, structural considerations, thermal considerations, sealing, ruggedization, and assembly design
  • Experience applying design-for-manufacturability and design-for-assembly principles to real hardware
  • Familiarity with common manufacturing and prototyping processes such as 3D printing, CNC machining, sheet metal, casting, injection molding, elastomers, adhesives, coatings, off-the-shelf hardware, or vendor-built prototypes
  • Ability to evaluate tradeoffs between prototype speed, manufacturability, part cost, tooling cost, assembly complexity, reliability, and product performance
  • Comfort integrating mechanical designs with electronics, sensors, actuators, batteries, cameras, embedded systems, or other electromechanical components
  • Comfort working in ambiguous, early-stage environments with evolving requirements

Nice to have

  • collaborative mindset aligned with Axon’s values and mission to Protect Life

What the JD emphasized

  • early-stage exploration
  • small-batch hardware products
  • rapidly prototype, test, and learn
  • design-for-manufacturability
  • design-for-assembly