---
title: 'Systems Engineer, Thermal and Airflow at Mill'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/systems-engineer-thermal-and-airflow-mill-san-bruno-gxqqn485vx5d'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-30'
---

# Systems Engineer, Thermal and Airflow at Mill

- **Company:** Mill
- **Location:** San Bruno, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-10-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-30
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/mill/jobs/4747129005

## Job description

Mill is a waste prevention technology company reimagining what it means to eliminate waste, starting with food. We build smart systems and infrastructure for homes, businesses, and municipalities that transform food scraps from landfill-bound waste into valuable resources, including chicken feed. Tens of thousands of Mill’s residential food recyclers are already helping households divert millions of pounds of food scraps every year, paving the way for our upcoming launch of Mill Commercial—the industry’s first end-to-end solution for managing, understanding, and preventing food waste in commercial environments (e.g. grocery, restaurants, food services). At Mill, we are passionate about building easy-to-use, beautifully designed technologies that keep food in the food system and out of landfills.

## About this Role

As a Systems Engineer at Mill, you will help characterize, understand, and improve the performance of our next-generation commercial food recycler. This is a hands-on individual contributor role on a small team. You’ll work closely with our test engineers to turn experimental data into clear conclusions, review and draft changes to the Engineering Requirements Document (ERD), and take ownership of specific subsystems from characterization through design improvement. You’ll collaborate daily with Mechanical, Electrical, Algorithms, and Product. If you enjoy digging into thermal and airflow data and turning it into better hardware, this role is for you.

## Responsibilities

- Partner with the test engineering team to plan experiments and analyze the resulting data on system parameters such as temperatures, airflow, humidity, and heat transfer. Derive conclusions, quantify tradeoffs, and recommend next steps to improve drying performance, energy efficiency, and throughput.
- Own targeted subsystems (e.g. airflow path, condenser, heater, or drying chamber) end to end: define requirements, characterize performance, identify failure modes, and drive design improvements.
- Review proposed changes to the ERD and draft requirement updates based on test results, field data, and cross-functional input, so that requirements stay current and visible to stakeholders.
- Work with the algorithms and firmware teams to provide the data and system understanding needed to refine control schemes for energy use, drying time, and reliable operation.
- Support mechanical engineers in evaluating and iterating on custom hardware such as mixing paddles, air deflectors, and cutting/shredding components, grounded in test data.
- Help define component requirements (fans, blowers, heaters, sensors, flow meters) and support part selection and evaluation.
- Build reusable analysis tools and clear reports (plots, summaries, test writeups) that make results legible across the team.

## Qualifications

- 3+ years of hands-on engineering experience with a thermal, airflow/fluids, or mechanical systems focus. Experience with thermal testing and airflow characterization is strongly preferred; a mechanical design background with strong test and analysis skills is also a great fit.
- Comfortable analyzing time-series test data and communicating findings clearly. Python is preferred, but other tools (R, MATLAB, spreadsheets, AI-assisted analysis) are acceptable.
- Experience writing or reviewing engineering requirements, test plans, or similar technical documentation.
- Familiarity with electromechanical components such as fans, blowers, heaters, valves, and sensors.
- BS in Mechanical, Thermal, Process, Chemical, or a related engineering field.
- Clear written and verbal communication; able to present results to engineers across disciplines.
- Able to work independently on an owned area while collaborating closely with a small, fast-moving team.

## Nice to have

-

- Prior experience taking a product or process from prototype toward production.
- Exposure to CFD or thermal simulation results and how to validate them against test data.
- Startup or small-team experience with fast paced environments

The estimated base salary range for this position is $165K to $195K, which does not include the value of benefits or a potential equity grant. A wide range of factors are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to skill sets, market conditions, experience and training, licensure and certifications, and business and organizational needs.

## About Mill

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Mill makes it easy to keep food out of landfills with innovative, odorless food recycling solutions for homes, workplaces, and cities.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C)
- **Headquarters**: San Bruno, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2020
- **Founders**: Not publicly available (founded by a team from Nest Labs / Google, though specific names are not widely publicized)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Environmental Services / Consumer Hardware & Software
- Target customers: B2C (homeowners), B2B (grocery and food service partners via Mill Commercial)
- Mission: To eliminate waste for good, starting with the food that ends up in landfills. The goal is to turn kitchen scraps into food for chickens, keeping food in the food system and out of landfills.

## Products & Services
- **Mill Food Recycler (Home)**: An odorless, effortless food recycling bin for the home. It uses intelligent tech to dehydrate and reduce food volume by 80% overnight. Users do not need to press a button; the device senses how much is added. The resulting grounds are shipped to Mill's small-farm partners for use as chicken feed. Type: Consumer Hardware + Service (subscription).
- **Mill Commercial**: A new solution for grocery stores and food service businesses to manage food waste at scale, leveraging the same core technology. Type: B2B Hardware + Service.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $170.8M across 6 rounds [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)
- **Key Metric**: 21,000,000+ pounds of food kept out of landfills [mill.com](https://www.mill.com/)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Prelude Ventures (led Series C), Climate Pledge Fund (Amazon), and others [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)
- **Growth Signals**: 110 total employees [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill) (LinkedIn reports 548, likely including contractors/partners) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill); 14 active job postings as of mid-2026; launch of Mill Commercial; headcount growth of +0.4% monthly [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Hardware + Software Moat**: The combination of a custom hardware appliance, embedded firmware, and a computer vision AI engine creates a difficult-to-replicate system.
- **Network Effect**: The more users Mill has, the more food waste is diverted, strengthening their supply chain of grounds for chicken feed and their partnerships with farms.
- **Brand & Design**: A strong focus on industrial design and user experience (odorless, effortless, beautiful) differentiates it from compost pails and garbage disposals.
- **Climate Impact**: Directly addresses methane emissions from landfills (methane is 80x more potent than CO2), giving it a strong mission-driven narrative.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling the Home Business**: Expanding the subscriber base for the home food recycler.
- **Launching Mill Commercial**: Entering the B2B market with grocery and food service partners to capture waste upstream.
- **International Expansion**: Likely future focus, given the global scale of food waste.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven**: Employees are directly working on climate change, keeping food out of landfills.
- **Hybrid Work**: Hybrid work environment (typical time on-site: 2 days a week) [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill).
- **Culture**: Described as a mix of hardware, software, and AI engineering with a startup feel. Offers company equity, 401(K), generous parental leave, free snacks, and company-sponsored family events [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill).
- **Engineering Focus**: Heavy investment in hardware engineering (San Bruno) and software/AI (Computer Vision). Roles include Hardware Test Engineer, Senior Firmware Engineer, AI Engineer (Computer Vision), and Product Design Engineer [greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/Mill).
- **Employee Rating**: 3.4/5.0 on LinkedIn (23 reviews), with Culture rated 3.7 and Compensation rated 3.6 [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill).

## Sources
1. [mill.com](https://www.mill.com/)
2. [greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/Mill)
3. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)

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