Position summary
Neybo is a hard plastic device children aged 4 to 8 talk to, hug, drop, and carry around all day. You own what that means mechanically: the enclosure, the internal frame, the acoustics, the materials — and you make sure it stays safe to handle and holds up through a month of daily use.
You take the design from CAD to a factory and stay with it: line audits, first article inspection, pilot run, mass production. If the tooling is off or the enclosure cracks the wrong way, you're on the floor fixing it yourself.
Key responsibilities
Mechanical design
- Own the mechanical design (plastic enclosure and internal frame) and support the placement of the PCBAs, cables, speaker, microphones, battery and antennas
- Design buttons, sensors, and the charging port for the hands of children aged 4 to 8, resistant to jamming and rough use
- Support acoustic integration: a speaker chamber that keeps sound clean through the shell and minimally impacts the microphone voice capture performance
- Manage the thermal interface and heat dissipation from the PCBAs to keep the outer shell safe for children's hands
Prototype and mockups
- Design an early frame and enclosure that can be made with 3D printing and CNC, to validate product properties: weight and mass distribution, look-and-feel
- Support manufacturing of early functional prototypes based on the available BOM and constraints
Materials and child safety
- Select enclosure material that is safe for children to touch and chew, impact resistant, and breaks into smooth, blunt pieces if it cracks
- Design to ASTM F963 (US) and the applicable UAE/GCC toy safety requirements from the start
- Eliminate pinch points, sharp edges, and choking hazards (small detachable parts) through design decisions made up front
DFM and tooling
- Support the requirements for tolerances, snap-fits, and the injection molding development process executed by the contract manufacturer (ODM)
- Audit and sign off on the injection tooling and trial runs in collaboration with the contract manufacturer
- Feed material and tooling cost/quality trade-offs into the BOM decisions the Hardware Tech Lead owns
Factory and NPI
- Evaluate factories and recommend one from the mechanical side: capacity, tooling quality, reference projects
- Run the NPI cycle on-site — EVT, DVT, PVT, MP — line audits, first article inspection, pilot run, production launch
- Provide corrective feedback when the line produces defects: root cause analysis on the production floor
- Negotiate schedule, minimum order quantity, and technical trade-offs directly with the factory within budget and timeline set by the Hardware Tech Lead
Testing and cross-functional fit
- Run drop, cyclic (button press, daily handling), thermal, aging and structural tests; use FEA for critical mechanical parts before the design phase kicks off
- Work with the Hardware Tech Lead to keep the enclosure compatible with antenna, PCBAs, and speaker placement
- Develop test requirements and procedures to verify that quality acceptance criteria are met
Required qualifications
- 7+ years in mechanical engineering for consumer hardware, with at least one product you took to mass production and stayed with through the factory
- Direct, hands-on factory experience: line audits, first article inspection, and corrective action on-site
- Strong DFM/DFA, GD&T, and material selection for injection-molded plastic enclosures
- CAD (SolidWorks, Fusion 360, or equivalent) and FEA for structural and thermal validation
- Working knowledge of child product safety standards (ASTM F963 or an equivalent regional standard), applied from the start of design
- Willingness to travel to the manufacturing site on a recurring basis during NPI
- English B2+ for factory, vendor, and certification communication
Preferred qualifications
- Speaker/mic acoustic design experience inside a plastic enclosure
- Early-stage or startup hardware experience: lean development, fast build iterations, early batch delivery, factory relationship, building the playbook as you go
- Direct negotiation experience with a factory on price, MOQ, and schedule
- Experience with a children's or toy product specifically
- Mandarin or another language relevant to your target manufacturing region
Technology / tools
- CAD: SolidWorks, Fusion 360, or Creo
- FEA and thermal/acoustic simulation tools
- GD&T and drawing standards for factory handoff
- Rapid prototyping: 3D printing, CNC
- Test equipment for drop, cyclic, and thermal validation
Success metrics
- NPI stages (EVT → DVT → PVT → MP) move on schedule on the mechanical side
- Early mockup and functional prototypes delivered for demo, test and development
- Zero mechanical safety defects — sharp edges, small parts, overheating — at DVT/PVT and in certification
- First-pass yield on the pilot run and first production batch at or above the agreed threshold
- Mechanical BOM and tooling cost within the agreed target
- Toy safety requirements for the launch markets closed before PVT
Team structure
Reports to the Hardware Tech Lead. Works closely with the Hardware Tech Lead on the mechanical-electrical fit and technical sign-off, and with Ops on commercial terms with the factory.
Final say on mechanical design, material selection, tooling, and technical factory evaluation. Joint decisions with the Hardware Tech Lead on device form factor and the mechanical-electrical interface, and with Ops on commercial factory terms. The Hardware Tech Lead holds the overall technical sign-off and the safety veto on production.