---
title: 'Softgoods Product Design Engineer at 1X'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/softgoods-product-design-engineer-1x-san-carlos-vhjn1e3tp775'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-18'
---

# Softgoods Product Design Engineer at 1X

- **Company:** [1X](https://feeny.ai/companies/1x)
- **Location:** San Carlos, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-12
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-18
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/1x/31b44800-6c48-4b1e-b1d0-0b110c263cb6

## Job description

## About 1X

Weʼre building humanoid robots that work in home - doing the chores, handling the tasks, and giving people their time back. Simple, but itʼs not.

To do this right, we have to solve robotics, AI, manufacturing - at the same time, at scale, in a form factor that has to be safe enough to live with your family. If youʼre inspired by this, youʼll thrive here. Weʼve been at this since 2014 and weʼre at the point where the hard problems are behind us and the hard work is in front of us.

NEO is our flagship - a home robot designed to move, learn, and operate in the real world alongside real people. Weʼre not demoing it - weʼre shipping it. Weʼre excited to meet you, if this excites you.

If youʼve spent your career working on problems that matter and want to see them actually reach the world - this is that moment. Weʼre scaling, weʼre hiring with intention, and we need people who want to build something that will genuinely change how humans spend their time - safely creating abundance for all.

## About the Team

The Softgoods team is a group of makers, engineers, and designers united by a passion for creating products people love to touch, trust, and use. We bring together rigid and soft materials—textiles, elastomers, and foams—pairing traditional techniques with the exotic and unexpected, always with safety, a soft-touch experience, and a warm, welcoming feel at our core, carrying every product from first concept through prototyping to full mass production.

## Your Charter

As a Product Design Engineer on the Softgoods team, you'll design the parts of NEO that people actually reach out and touch — the textiles, foams, and elastomers that turn a humanoid robot into something a family welcomes home. Owning these components end to end, you'll pair traditional softgoods craft with exotic, unexpected materials and carry them from first sketch through prototyping into full mass production. Working alongside industrial designers, materials scientists, and manufacturing engineers, you'll translate "soft-touch and welcoming" into repeatable parts that hold their quality at scale.

## Key Outcomes

- Own the full lifecycle of NEO's softgoods components (textiles, foams, elastomers) from concept through mass production, accountable for delivering parts at production quality and on schedule.
- Deliver a soft-touch, welcoming tactile experience that holds at scale, accountable for components meeting defined feel and finish standards with a low defect rate across production runs.
- Ensure all touch-facing softgoods meet safety and durability requirements, owning qualification so parts pass validation testing before launch. Owning testing & fixtures.
- Drive design-for-manufacturability and cost targets, accountable for hitting per-unit cost goals and improving first-pass yield as parts move from prototype to mass production.
- Qualify materials and manufacturing partners for new and exotic softgoods, responsible for bringing production-ready material solutions to the program.

## Key Competencies

- Softgoods design expertise — deep hands-on knowledge of textiles, foams, and elastomers, including yarns, dyes, knitting, and weaving, and the techniques that join them (cut-and-sew, bonding, lamination, molding), with the craft sensibility to make parts that look and feel premium.
- CAD and FEA proficiency — fluent in 3D CAD modeling and surface design, and uses FEA to validate structural performance, durability, and fit early, reducing costly iteration once tooling is committed.
- Design for manufacturing at scale — fluency in translating prototypes into repeatable, high-volume production, anticipating tolerance, fit, and process constraints early so quality holds from the first unit to the millionth. GD&T is a Plus.
- Cross-functional collaboration — works fluidly with industrial designers, materials scientists, and manufacturing engineers, translating a subjective goal like "soft and welcoming" into shared, buildable specifications.
- Hands-on maker — has personally built, assembled, and prototyped their own designs, bringing the shop-floor intuition to know what will actually work, fit, and assemble in production.

## Minimum Requirements

- Experience: 5-10 (Open to review candidates that shine with less)
- Education: Bachelors of Science engineering or related, or equivalent experience
- A portfolio is required, showcasing your professional work, personal projects, and passion projects.

## Preferred Skills

- You take pride in doing things well and don't cut corners.
- You love thinking outside the box and finding creative solutions.
- You get excited blending tried-and-true methods with new technologies to solve problems the right way.

What does a successful 1X Team Member look like Team members at 1X who thrive here are builders. They move fast, own their work completely, and treat time like itʼs the one thing you canʼt get back - because it is. They say what they mean, finish what they start, and hold themselves to a standard before anyone has to ask. We push each other to be better, and we do it with honesty and respect.

## Compensation Range

$175,000 - $215,000 + Equity

## Benefits

- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Generous paid time off, company holidays, and parental leave
- 401(k) plan with company match, 100% on the first 3% of contributions, 50% on the next 2%
- Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Health Savings Accounts (HSA) options
- Commuter benefits (transit and parking)
- Short-term and long-term disability, and life insurance
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental health, financial, and personal support
- Onsite snacks and catered lunches

## Equal Opportunity Employer

1X is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, marital status, medical condition, genetic information, disability, military or veteran status, justice system impact, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.

## About 1X

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: 1X develops general-purpose humanoid robots for home and industrial environments, combining AI and hardware to automate everyday tasks.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B funding stage)
- **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2015
- **Founders**: Bernt Øyvind Børnich

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Robotics Engineering / Artificial Intelligence
- **Target customers**: B2C (home consumers via NEO) and B2B/Enterprise (industrial tasks via EVE)
- **Mission**: Build a truly abundant society through general-purpose robots capable of performing any kind of work autonomously, allowing humans to focus on what they love.

## Products & Services
- **NEO**: A friendly home humanoid robot designed to integrate seamlessly into daily life and handle chores. Currently in early access after the NEO Beta (2024) and NEO Gamma (2025) iterations. [1x.tech](https://www.1x.tech/about)
- **EVE**: A wheeled industrial humanoid deployed in factories worldwide for autonomous industrial tasks. [1x.tech](https://www.1x.tech/about)
- **Revo1**: A high-torque-to-weight drive servo motor inspired by human tendon actuation, used in 1X robots. [1x.tech](https://www.1x.tech/about)
- **1X World Model**: A physics-grounded video model that enables NEO to learn autonomously from text or voice commands. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1x-technologies)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of $169M as of mid-2026, with a $100M Series B led by EQT Ventures in January 2024. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1x-technologies)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: EQT Ventures (lead), plus other investors in secondary rounds. Acquired Kind Humanoid in January 2025. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1x-technologies)
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Headcount grew 121.2% YoY to 394 employees. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1x-technologies)
  - Full-scale production of NEO began in Hayward, CA, with capacity to build 10,000 units per year. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1x-technologies)
  - New Palo Alto HQ consolidated teams from Sunnyvale and Moss, Norway. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1x-technologies)
  - Appointed Mohi Khansari as Head of Robot Learning (January 2026) and Vikram Kothari as VP of Operations (August 2025). [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1x-technologies)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Vertical integration**: Owns manufacturing in Hayward (U.S.) and Moss (Norway), controlling the full production stack.
- **Proprietary hardware**: Revo1 servo motor offers world-leading torque-to-weight ratio, enabling flexible, low-gear-ratio robotics.
- **AI-first approach**: The 1X World Model allows robots to learn physical tasks via simulation and self-supervised video prediction, reducing need for manual programming.
- **Early home deployment**: NEO is one of the first humanoid robots entering private homes, giving 1X real-world data and feedback loops.

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling NEO production and expanding early access to more households across the U.S.
- Enhancing AI capabilities through the World Model and reinforcement learning (e.g., Redwood mobility controller).
- Building a robust supply chain and service network for home robots.
- Continuing enterprise deployments of EVE while shifting emphasis to the consumer market.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Fast-paced, mission-driven environment focused on building humanoid robots that coexist with humans. Strong emphasis on AI, hardware, and real-world impact.
- **Work model**: Likely on-site for hardware and AI roles (multiple offices in Palo Alto, San Carlos, Sunnyvale, Hayward, and Moss). Some software roles may offer flexibility.
- **Notable perks**: Opportunity to work on cutting-edge robotics and AI, contribute to a product (NEO) that is already entering homes, and be part of a rapidly scaling company with strong funding.
- **Engineering culture**: High concentration of talent from Tesla, Apple, Google, and SpaceX. Active research in biomechanics, reinforcement learning, and simulation. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1x-technologies)
- **Open roles**: 65+ positions listed on the careers page across AI, hardware, software, operations, and manufacturing. [1x.tech](https://www.1x.tech/careers)

## Sources
1. [1x.tech](https://www.1x.tech/about)
2. [1x.tech](https://www.1x.tech/careers)
3. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1x-technologies)

## Other roles at 1X

- [Assembly Technician - Robot Body](https://feeny.ai/job/assembly-technician-robot-body-1x-hayward-vzyf29edmpqs) — Hayward, CA
- [Assembly Technician - Robot Hands](https://feeny.ai/job/assembly-technician-robot-hands-1x-san-carlos-pmapx1q19zx9) — San Carlos, CA
- [Production Supervisor - Hands](https://feeny.ai/job/production-supervisor-hands-1x-san-carlos-y8pqyysd0w27) — San Carlos, CA
- [Software Engineer - Backend](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-backend-1x-san-carlos-8rmwgzhnp9r9) — San Carlos, CA
- [Softgoods Development Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/softgoods-development-technician-1x-san-carlos-rd5bt7w0amkq) — San Carlos, CA
- [Softgoods Development Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/softgoods-development-engineer-1x-san-carlos-0a9qhnwx0xfz) — San Carlos, CA
- [Manufacturing Engineer, Battery](https://feeny.ai/job/manufacturing-engineer-battery-1x-san-carlos-63ded8aa117c) — San Carlos, CA
- [Senior/Staff Technical Product Manager, Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-technical-product-manager-platform-1x-san-carlos-f348r8pczcyz) — San Carlos, CA
- [Robot Service Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/robot-service-technician-1x-san-carlos-j3tzw1v8zn0s) — San Carlos, CA
- [Senior Safety Compliance Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-safety-compliance-engineer-1x-san-carlos-fdnm12namjgk) — San Carlos, CA