---
title: 'Engineering Technician at Generalist'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-technician-generalist-san-mateo-6s93yqcagymy'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Engineering Technician at Generalist

- **Company:** Generalist
- **Location:** San Mateo, CA
- **Compensation:** $26–$50/hr
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-05-18
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/generalist/6d0698f0-6669-4100-9129-494e8088da48/application

**Skills:** Mechanical assembly, Electrical wiring, Hand tools, Power tools, Build instruction execution, Quality inspection, Hardware builds, Basic electrical work

> This hands-on role involves assembling mechanical and electrical components into functional robotic systems. The technician performs precise assembly, inspects builds for quality, and identifies defects to ensure reliable production processes.

## Job description

## ABOUT GENERALIST

At Generalist, we are on a mission to build general intelligence for the physical world and make it useful to everyone. We believe the industries and homes of the future will depend on humans and machines working together in new ways. Robots can help us build more and get more done.

We build embodied foundation models, starting with a focus on dexterity. This requires advancing the frontiers of data, models, and hardware, to enable robots to intelligently interact with the physical world.

The company embraces both large-scale AI and robotics as core to its DNA. Our team of researchers, roboticists, and company builders come from OpenAI, Boston Dynamics, Google DeepMind, and other frontier labs—with a track record of shipping AI breakthroughs. Before Generalist, we pioneered large embodied multimodal models and vision-language-action models (PaLM-E, https://research.google/blog/palm-e-an-embodied-multimodal-language-model/ RT-2 https://deepmind.google/blog/rt-2-new-model-translates-vision-and-language-into-action/, Gemini Robotics https://deepmind.google/models/gemini-robotics/), launched and scaled ChatGPT https://chatgpt.com/ and GPT-4 https://openai.com/index/gpt-4-research/ to hundreds of millions of users, engineered the foundations of autonomous driving, built next-generation robots (Atlas https://bostondynamics.com/atlas/, Spot https://bostondynamics.com/products/spot/, Stretch https://bostondynamics.com/products/stretch/) and pushed the limits of what they can do (from parkour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF4DML7FIWk to manipulation https://bostondynamics.com/blog/large-behavior-models-atlas-find-new-footing/, and testing robustness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuA50H9uek).

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

## ABOUT THE ROLE

This is a hands-on, execution-driven role at the center of building our robots.

As an Engineering Technician, you’ll be responsible for turning parts into working systems — quickly, precisely, and reliably. You’ll help ensure builds are clean, repeatable, and scalable.

In practice, you’ll assemble mechanical systems, perform basic electrical work (wiring, connectors, simple integrations), run checks, catch issues early, and help improve how we build. If something is off — misaligned parts, loose connections, unclear instructions, inefficiencies in the process — you fix it or flag it.

This role is about making sure our robots come together correctly, every time.

## YOU’LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR:

- Assembling mechanical components into fully functioning robotic systems
- Performing basic electrical work (routing wires, connecting components, installing connectors)
- Reading and executing build instructions with high accuracy
- Using hand tools, power tools, and specialized equipment to perform precise assembly work
- Inspecting and testing assemblies to ensure quality and functionality
- Identifying defects, misalignments, or inconsistencies and escalating quickly
- Following SOPs, safety standards, and best practices during all builds
- Maintaining a clean, organized, and efficient workspace
- Collaborating with engineers and teammates to hit build timelines
- Contributing to process improvements to make builds faster and more reliable

YOU MIGHT THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU:

- Have hands-on experience with mechanical assembly or hardware builds
- Have some exposure to basic electrical work (wiring, connectors, harnesses)
- Are detail-oriented and take pride in clean, precise work
- Are comfortable using tools and working with physical systems
- Catch problems early and don’t ignore small issues
- Like working with your hands and seeing tangible results
- Can follow structured processes but also improve them
- Are reliable, consistent, and move with urgency
- Enjoy being part of a fast-moving, build-heavy environment
- Like being the person who makes things actually come together

What This Role Is Not

- This is not a purely theoretical or design-focused role
- This is not a robotics software or controls engineering position
- This is not a deep electrical engineering role
- This is not a passive “follow instructions only” job

Instead, this role sits on the front lines of building real robotic systems — where mechanical precision and clean electrical work directly impact what ships.

Growth & Impact

As we scale, this role grows with the complexity and volume of our builds.

You’ll have the opportunity to take on more ownership across build processes, quality systems, and production workflows — helping shape how our robots are assembled at scale.

If you want to work hands-on with cutting-edge robotics and be directly responsible for bringing systems to life, this role has real impact.

## About Generalist

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Generalist is a frontier AI research and product company building general-purpose intelligence for the physical world through embodied foundation models for robots.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: San Mateo, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Pete Florence (Co-Founder & CEO), Andy Zeng (Co-Founder & Chief Scientist)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Robotics Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Embodied AI
- **Target customers**: B2B – enterprises operating factories, warehouses, laboratories, restaurants, and logistics centers; eventually homes.
- **Mission**: “Make general-purpose robots a reality. We build embodied foundation models for the physical world.”

## Products & Services
- **GEN-1**: General-purpose AI model for robotics that achieves ~99% average success rate on tasks (vs. 64% for prior state-of-the-art) and completes tasks roughly 3x faster. Trained on half a million hours of real-world data collected via low-cost wearable devices. Available to early-access partners as a model or API. [therobotreport.com](https://www.therobotreport.com/generalist-introduces-gen-1-general-purpose-model-for-physical-ai/)
- **GEN-0**: Previous generation model that demonstrated scaling laws in robotics. Used as the foundation for GEN-1.
- **Data Collection Devices**: Proprietary low-cost wearable hardware that captures human activities at scale, enabling pretraining without large teleoperation or simulation datasets.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly available
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding – $128M (Series A closed March 2025; earlier seed round led by NVentures) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/generalistai)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: NVentures (seed lead); Board Director Ellen Chisa. Series A investor not named in public data.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 325% YoY to 42 employees. GEN-1 model released five months after GEN-0, with production-level reliability. Early-access partnerships underway. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/generalistai)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Model performance**: GEN-1 achieves 99% average success rate across tasks like kitting auto parts, folding T-shirts, packing phones – a step change from sub-70% success by previous models.
- **Data efficiency**: Trained primarily on human demonstration data (wearable devices) rather than expensive robot teleoperation data; can match previous models with 10x less task-specific data.
- **Algorithmic innovations**: Custom training kernels, paged attention for real-time inference, Harmonic Reasoning, and RL post-training enable improvisation and recovery from unexpected scenarios.
- **Team pedigree**: Founders and key hires from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Boston Dynamics – bringing experience from ChatGPT, GPT-4, PaLM-E, RT-2, Gemini Robotics, Atlas, Spot, and Stretch.

## Strategic Focus
- Current priorities: Scale GEN-1’s embodied foundation model to master more complex physical tasks, expand into economically valuable settings (manufacturing, logistics, healthcare), and build the data infrastructure needed for general-purpose robots. The company is “accelerating the next phase of factories, homes, and the broader physical world.”

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Tight-knit, research-forward environment with a mix of AI and hardware engineering. On-site presence in San Francisco (SFO) and Boston (BOS). [generalistai.com/careers](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/generalist)
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: All open positions are listed as “On-site” (no remote or hybrid options).
- **Notable Perks**: Not explicitly disclosed, but the startup’s rapid growth and $128M funding suggest competitive compensation and equity. The team consists of leading roboticists and AI researchers, offering exposure to cutting-edge work.
- **Engineering Culture**: Heavy emphasis on technical staff (Software Engineers in ML Infra, Robotics Controls, ML Optimization, Infrastructure; Research Scientists in pretraining and post-training). Roles include hands-on robot operation and systems building.

## Sources
1. [generalistai.com](https://generalistai.com/)
2. [generalistai.com/careers](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/generalist)
3. [generalistai.com/about](https://generalistai.com/about)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/generalistai)
5. [therobotreport.com](https://www.therobotreport.com/generalist-introduces-gen-1-general-purpose-model-for-physical-ai/)

## Other roles at Generalist

- [Research Scientist: Post-Training](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-post-training-generalist-san-mateo-vrnttp54gr4z) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA
- [Data Partnerships](https://feeny.ai/job/data-partnerships-generalist-san-mateo-tm0yccvmgxm3) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA
- [Mechanical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/mechanical-engineer-generalist-boston-74p3xtqpvs13) — Boston, MA
- [Electrical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/electrical-engineer-generalist-san-mateo-x985d69q4w17) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA
- [Research Assistant](https://feeny.ai/job/research-assistant-generalist-san-mateo-1ahfzy22gp7s) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA
- [Executive Assistant](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-assistant-generalist-san-mateo-d58q9t9a6jav) — San Mateo, CA
- [Data Collection Lab Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/data-collection-lab-manager-generalist-boston-dr2gxr4h4snk) — Boston, MA
- [Office Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/office-manager-generalist-san-mateo-nmvjjw2x5jpv) — San Mateo, CA
- [Robot Science Ops](https://feeny.ai/job/robot-science-ops-generalist-san-mateo-w3g9q4n8eby8) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA
- [Research Scientist: Pretraining](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-pretraining-generalist-san-mateo-7n5nnpe1pwmr) — San Mateo, CA / Somerville, MA