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Principal Solutions Architect

Instrumental · Palo Alto, United States · On-site

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About Instrumental

Backed by First Round Capital.

About the role

Most senior mechanical engineers we talk to have hit the same wall: you've spent a decade getting great at one product category, and now every new project feels like a smaller version of the last one. You're ready for harder, more varied problems — but most senior IC roles just mean more of the same thing, not different things.

What they're looking for

  • 15+ years in mechanical design, manufacturing engineering, product design, automation, test equipment, or related disciplines
  • Excellent communication skills and genuine enthusiasm for working directly with customers
  • Experience on high-volume electronics or NPI manufacturing floors — you understand production workflows, line constraints, and what actually breaks going from NPI to mass production
  • Strong CAD chops (SolidWorks, Creo, NX, or similar)
  • Real fluency in DFM, tolerance analysis, and mechanical design tradeoffs
  • A builder's mindset — you'd rather solve an ambiguous problem than wait for a perfectly-scoped one
More about this role

Most senior mechanical engineers we talk to have hit the same wall: you've spent a decade getting great at one product category, and now every new project feels like a smaller version of the last one. You're ready for harder, more varied problems — but most senior IC roles just mean more of the same thing, not different things.

This role is the opposite. You won't spend years iterating on a single product — you'll work across a wide range of customer applications, from AI infrastructure and networking equipment to consumer electronics and defense, often several of them in the same month. Every project is a new engineering challenge, a new manufacturing floor, and a new problem that hasn't been solved yet at that company.

As a Principal Solutions Design Engineer, you'll combine mechanical design, electronics manufacturing expertise, and direct customer collaboration to build custom hardware and software solutions that go straight into real production lines — not a slide deck, an actual station on an actual floor.

And if you've ever considered an MBA or a more strategic track that still uses your technical depth — this role is a rare way to get there without leaving engineering....

Read the full posting on Instrumental's site ↗

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