Mechanical Design Engineer, Precision Systems - Austin, United States
$115,000 - $180,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 29 April 2026 by the employer.
About the role
You will be responsible for designing, prototyping, and building the mechanical systems in semiconductor fabrication equipment, from stages and frames up to complete systems. The focus spans lithography, metrology, and motion systems that operate on the nanometer scale.
What you'll do
- Design and iterate on precision machines, motion stages, structural loops, metrology frames, opto-mechanical mounts, test fixtures, and inspection tooling targeting sub-micron to nanometer performance. - Lead mechanical system integration, alignment procedures, and cross-team coordination with electrical, controls, and optics engineers. - Drive mechanical design of frames, stages, and assemblies with GD&T, tolerance analysis, and a practical eye toward manufacturability and assembly. - Rapidly prototype, build, and characterize new designs on the bench using a variety of tools and characterization equipment. - Select and integrate precision components: bearings, encoders, interferometers, actuators, isolators, and dampers. - Develop error budgets and tolerance stack-ups; identify and mitigate dominant error sources (thermal, vibrational, structural, kinematic).
What you'll need
- Deep experience designing and building precision mechanical systems targeting concrete accuracy and repeatability specifications. - Working fluency in precision machine design fundamentals: exact-constraint design, kinematic couplings, flexures, error budgeting, structural loops, and tolerance analysis. - Hands-on prototyping, fabrication, assembly, and alignment experience, including work on a mill, granite surface plate, and interferometer. - Experience selecting and integrating precision components such as bearings, stages, encoders, isolators, and actuators. - Experience with dimensional metrology tools, including interferometry, LVDTs, capacitance probes, autocollimators, and CMMs.
Nice to have
- Formal training in precision engineering. - Experience at an early-stage startup. - Familiarity with firmware, controls, or electrical engineering. - Opto-mechanical design and alignment experience.
Skills: precision mechanical systems, motion stages, structural loops, metrology frames, tolerancing, GD&T
This role has been open 178 days — well above the 54-day median for Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering roles.
Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering · Manufacturing Equipment
|
Open roles in category
2487
|
Median days open
54 d
|
Median salary
$99k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Atomic Semi | All employers we track in this specialty (2487 roles · 78 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 5 | 2487 |
| Open roles in the wider Process, Fab & Equipment family | 24 | 10039 · 106 employers |
| Median days open | 129 d | 54 d (+75 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $99k |
Skills observed across this category: precision mechanical systems, motion stages, structural loops, metrology frames, tolerancing, GD&T
Who's hiring in this category
- Micron Technology · 364 open roles · median 80 d
- Applied Materials · 259 open roles · median 38 d
- Entegris · 217 open roles · median 44 d
- Lam Research · 112 open roles · median 66 d
- Infineon Technologies · 99 open roles · median 47 d
- ASML · 67 open roles · median 52 d
How we counted: 2487 open Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering (Manufacturing Equipment) roles from 78 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 25 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Process, Fab & Equipment family row. Figures refresh nightly.