Hardware, Tactile Gloves Lead

Department: Hardware Engineering- Theo

Location: New York, Toronto GTA, San Francisco

Compensation: $200K – $225K

Employment Type: FullTime

About Mecka AI

Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI.
We design and operate global systems for data capture, data labeling, and hardware-enabled workflows used by leading AI labs and robotics companies to train and validate humanoid and embodied AI systems.
We work closely with frontier robotics teams to bridge real-world data, simulation, learning-based systems, and deployed hardware.

About the Role

You will build the tactile gloves that capture how people handle objects, use tools, and perform skilled work. Turning touch into reliable training data is a major challenge in teaching robots dexterity. Your work will take that capability from promising prototypes to hardware used for data collection at scale.

You will lead commercial glove evaluation and in-house development, from product requirements through validation and production. This is hands-on technical leadership across sensing, wearable design, electronics, firmware, and manufacturing, with accountability for performance, cost, and delivery.

What You Will Do

• Define requirements and build milestones for sensing performance, fit, comfort, durability, calibration, and data quality.

• Source and benchmark commercial gloves and sensors. Decide where to buy, adapt, or develop hardware based on measured performance, integration effort, cost, and supply.

• Guide system architecture and build prototypes with sensing, mechanical, electronics, and firmware engineers. Resolve tradeoffs between signal quality, wearability, and manufacturability.

• Own supplier selection, build schedules, component costs, tooling, and manufacturing readiness through engineering, design, and production validation (EVT/DVT/PVT).

• Establish calibration methods, production tests, acceptance criteria, and fixtures that deliver consistent performance across units and improve manufacturing yield.

• Lead pilot deployments and wear testing for repeated flexing, sweat, abrasion, and long-term signal stability. Turn failures into verified design improvements.

Skills and Experience

• Experience personally taking a wearable, sensor-based, or similarly complex hardware product from prototypes through validation and production.

• Deep hands-on expertise in sensing, electronics, mechanical engineering, or wearable design, with the ability to diagnose problems across the complete system.

• Experience characterizing tactile, force, pressure, or comparable sensors. You can design experiments to measure sensitivity, hysteresis, drift, repeatability, and calibration stability.

• Ability to reason about how flexible materials, sensor mounting, interconnects, and fit affect measurement quality and durability during real use.

• Experience working directly with suppliers on design for manufacturing and test, tooling, production quality, and cost.

• Ability to turn ambiguous requirements into testable specifications.

Nice to Have

• Experience with tactile gloves, haptics, flexible circuits, textiles, or other hardware worn on the hand.

• Experience scaling production calibration or collecting synchronized sensor data for robotics and machine learning.

About You

• You are ambitious about what you build. You can point to results you personally delivered.

• You care deeply about your craft, pursue difficult questions, and learn quickly.

• You take initiative and own problems through to results. You work independently, make decisions, and bring others in when needed.

• You communicate honestly. You own mistakes, share credit, and help the people around you succeed.

If you don't check every box above but believe you can do the job, we encourage you to apply — we're looking for capability and trajectory, not a perfect checklist match.

We strive to create an inclusive work environment for all; we welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are committed to providing equal opportunities. Should you require any accommodations during the recruitment process, we will partner with you to meet your needs.

We may use AI-assisted tools to help evaluate applications against the requirements of this role. These tools support our recruiting team in identifying qualified candidates but do not replace human judgment or limit which applications may be reviewed or considered.