Principal Solutions Architect

Most senior mechanical engineers we talk to have hit the same wall: you've spent a decade getting great at one product category, and now every new project feels like a smaller version of the last one. You're ready for harder, more varied problems — but most senior IC roles just mean more of the same thing, not different things. This role is the opposite. You won't spend years iterating on a single product — you'll work across a wide range of customer applications, from AI infrastructure and networking equipment to consumer electronics and defense, often several of them in the same month. Every project is a new engineering challenge, a new manufacturing floor, and a new problem that hasn't been solved yet at that company. As a Principal Solutions Design Engineer, you'll combine mechanical design, electronics manufacturing expertise, and direct customer collaboration to build custom hardware and software solutions that go straight into real production lines — not a slide deck, an actual station on an actual floor. And if you've ever considered an MBA or a more strategic track that still uses your technical depth — this role is a rare way to get there without leaving engineering. You'll own solutions end-to-end: scoping technical tradeoffs with customer engineering teams, making the case to their operations and business stakeholders, and seeing your design decisions show up in [... source excerpt omitted ...] I era by improving manufacturing yield, throughput, and ramp. NVIDIA, Meta, Cisco, and their manufacturing partners rely on Instrumental to accelerate new product introduction and production. What You'll Do: Architect customer manufacturing solutions. Partner directly with engineering, manufacturing, and operations teams to understand their production processes, technical requirements, and constraints. Translate that into end-to-end inspection solutions — figuring out where Instrumental stations belong in a line to maximize coverage, throughput, and business impact. Lead technical customer engagements. Be the technical voice throughout the customer lifecycle, balancing cycle tim [... source excerpt omitted ...] g strategy, mechanical fixtures, optics, lighting, and everything else that has to integrate seamlessly into a high-volume line. Turn manufacturing data into decisions. Learn how customers use their own data — images, test results, BOMs, production records — and build that into solutions that improve visibility and speed up decisions on the floor. We're Looking For Someone Who Has: 15+ years in mechanical design, manufacturing engineering, product design, automation, test equipment, or related disciplines Excellent communication skills and genuine enthusiasm for working directly with customers Experience on high-volume electronics or NPI manufacturing floors — you understand