---
title: Sr. Mechatronics Engineer Actuation & Drivetrain
description: 9 Mothers is hiring for the Sr. Mechatronics Engineer Actuation & Drivetrain role
  in Austin, TX. See the full description and apply.
type: job
url: https://www.foundrole.com/jobs/sr-mechatronics-engineer-actuation-and-drivetrain-at-9-mothers-01a18428-c72b-74c3-9761-66f2ff9e41ee
date: 2026-11-15T17:42:40Z
og_description: Join 9 Mothers as Sr. Mechatronics Engineer Actuation & Drivetrain in Austin,
  TX. Pays $150K–$200K per year. Full-time, on-site role.
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---

| | |
|---|---|
| **Company** | 9 Mothers |
| **Location** | Austin, TX |
| **Salary** | $150K/yr - $200K/yr |
| **Type** | Full Time |
| **Posted** | Oct 28, 2026 |

## Is this job real?

**Ghost job check:** A · Low risk. Probably a real opening.

## Visa sponsorship

- **H-1B:** No H-1B sponsorship on record for 9 Mothers.
- **E-Verify:** No E-Verify enrollment on record for 9 Mothers.

## Pay for similar jobs

Most similar jobs pay $110,000 – $170,000 a year (median $136,000).

## Description

**Location**: Onsite — Austin, TX

**Employment Type**: Direct Hire, Full‑Time

**Job Title**: Senior Mechatronics Engineer - Actuation & Drivetrain

**About 9 Mothers**

The modern battlefield has changed. Cheap, autonomous suicide drones have turned the tactical advantage upside down, and the world is looking for a solution. At 9 Mothers, we aren’t just "innovating"—we are building the shield.

Backed by top-tier investors, we develop AI powered machines designed to intercept and neutralize Group 1/sUAS threats in real-time. Our flagship product is a low-power, counter-drone system built for the edge—on vehicles, at bases, or in a soldier's pack.

**Why 9 Mothers?**

While others build for "awareness" or "long-term research," we build for the immediate survival of those in harm’s way. We are a team of hackers, engineers, and mission-driven builders who value field-ready capability over polished slide decks. If you want to see your code or hardware in the field next month—not next year—this is your playground.

**Position Summary**

EDDA is only as good as its actuators, and we're hiring the person who owns them. You will be our servo wizard: the single owner of every motor, actuator, gearbox and solenoid in the product, from the first torque and inertia calculation through supplier selection, bench characterization, control-loop tuning, abuse testing and production release. You are as fluent in gearbox design — backlash, torsional stiffness, efficiency, lubrication, lifetime — as you are inside the current loop of the servo driving it. And you have lived with motion systems that get rained on, dropped, fired next to and bounced across a field on the back of a truck.

**What You'll Own**

Everything in the product that converts electrons into motion is yours — the parts, the suppliers, the test data and the tuning.

- **Motors and actuators:** BLDC/PMSM and frameless torque motors, steppers where they earn their place, linear actuators — every axis that moves EDDA's azimuth, elevation and auxiliary mechanisms.

- **Gearboxes and drivetrain:** planetary, strain-wave (harmonic), cycloidal, worm and belt stages; the direct-drive-versus-geared call on each axis; bearing arrangements, preload, backlash and the stiffness budget that sets achievable control bandwidth.

- **Solenoids and discrete actuators:** latches, safeties, indexing and release mechanisms — the fast, simple actuators that must work every time, in the cold, after being dropped.

- **Motor drives and tuning:** drive selection or specification, commutation and feedback (encoders, resolvers, Hall sensors), current/velocity/position loop tuning, feedforward and filtering.

- **Characterization and test:** dynamometer and bench rigs, thermal derating, torque ripple and cogging, efficiency maps, endurance and abuse testing, and the acceptance tests production runs on every unit.

- **The actuation supply chain:** vendor qualification, custom motor and gearbox specifications, second sources, cost-down and the lead times that production depends on.

**Essential Duties**

- **Size and select:** turn slew-rate, acceleration, pointing-accuracy and duty-cycle requirements into torque, speed, reflected-inertia and thermal budgets; pick or specify the motor, gear ratio and drive that meet them with margin — and show the math.

- **Design the drivetrain:** own the mechanical path from rotor to load — gear stages, couplings, shafts, bearings, preload, lubrication and seals — and the stiffness and backlash budget that determines how hard the loops can be pushed.

- **Characterize everything:** build the rigs and run the tests — torque constant, back-EMF, inductance, cogging and ripple, friction and stiction, efficiency, thermal rise, backlash and lost motion — so tuning starts from a measured plant, not a datasheet.

- **Tune the loops:** commission and tune current, velocity and position loops (PID, feedforward, notch filters, observers) for aggressive high-bandwidth tracking without exciting structural modes or cooking the motor.

- **Engineer for abuse:** design and qualify actuation for shock and vibration from vehicle mounts and weapon firing, dust, mud, water, salt, EMI and temperature extremes; lead failure analysis when hardware comes back from the range broken, and make sure the next revision doesn't.

- **Own the supply chain:** qualify vendors, write motor, gearbox and solenoid specifications, manage second sources and lead times, and drive cost-down for production volumes.

- **Bridge the teams:** be the technical interface between mechanical, electrical, firmware and robotics on anything that moves; triage failures at the hardware-software boundary and call whether a problem is mechanical, electrical or control.

- **Document and release:** derating curves, tuning procedures, acceptance tests and drawings that production and field teams can execute without you in the room.

**Requirements**

- **Experience:** 10+ years in mechatronics or motion-system engineering with a track record of shipping servo-driven products — ideally pan-tilt units, gimbals, turrets, robotic joints or vehicle-mounted systems.

- **Servo depth:** hands-on selection, commissioning and tuning of BLDC/PMSM servo systems: field-oriented control, current/velocity/position loops, encoder and resolver feedback, drive configuration, and diagnosing instability, resonance and thermal limits on the bench.

- **Gearbox fluency:** working command of planetary, strain-wave, cycloidal and worm drives — ratio selection, efficiency, backlash, torsional stiffness, lubrication and lifetime — and a clear sense of when direct drive beats gearing.

- **Actuator characterization:** you have built test rigs and run dynamometer, thermal, efficiency and endurance tests; comfortable with scopes, current probes, DAQ and Python or MATLAB to extract plant parameters from data.

- **Drivetrain design:** can design and detail the mechanical path from rotor to load — bearings, shafts, couplings, seals, preload — in CAD (SolidWorks or similar) with tolerance analysis.

- **Programming:** enough C/C++ or Python to configure drives, automate tests and prototype control code; comfortable reading motor-control firmware.

- **Supplier management:** have specified custom motors or gearboxes with vendors and run qualification, second-sourcing and cost-down.

- **Hands-on rigor:** you build, break, measure and fix your own hardware.

- **Compliance:** U.S. citizenship and the ability to pass a background check.

**Nice‑to‑Have**

- **Harsh-environment qualification:** MIL-STD-810 shock and vibration, IP-rated sealing, EMI/EMC, thermal cycling — and the scars from hardware that was abused in the field anyway.

- **Weapon-mounted, recoil-loaded or vehicle-mounted motion systems.**

- **Custom motor design:** frameless, outer-rotor or slotless motors and magnetics; electromagnetic FEA (Ansys Maxwell, JMAG, FEMM).

- **Solenoid and voice-coil design:** force-stroke-thermal trade-offs, PWM hold, fast actuation.

- **Structural dynamics:** modal analysis and designing control around structural modes; stabilization on a moving platform.

- **Advanced control:** model-predictive, adaptive or disturbance-observer control.

- **Drive ecosystems:** CAN, EtherCAT, ROS 2/DDS; hands-on time with ODrive, moteus, Elmo, Copley, Kollmorgen or similar drives.

- **Production experience:** DFM, incoming inspection and acceptance-test procedures for actuators.

- Security clearance or the ability to obtain one.

- You build robots, race drones or rebuild machinery on your own time.

**Benefits**

- **Meaningful Early Equity:** You aren't just an employee; you are a foundational owner. Your contributions directly drive the value of your stake in the company.

- **Direct Roadmap Influence:** Forget the bureaucracy of big defense. You will have a seat at the table, directly shaping our product and technology trajectory from day one.

- **Mission-Critical Work:** We don't build for "what if." We build systems the Department of War actively needs to counter immediate, real-world threats.

- **The Builder's Playground:** Work in a brand-new lab fully optimized for rapid prototyping, equipped with NVIDIA Jetsons, high-end scopes, and 3-D printers.

- **100% Employer-Paid Premiums:** We cover 100% of your medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums and cover 50% of healthcare premiums for your dependents.

- **Unlimited PTO:** We value results, not clock-watching. Take the time you need to stay sharp and recharge.

- **Zero Red Tape:** You report to the founders. You have the autonomy to make technical decisions that would take months of committee approval at a larger firm.

- **Austin-Based Culture:** Join an onsite team in Austin, TX, where we prioritize high-bandwidth collaboration and rapid field-testing.

- **Relocation Assistance:** We want the best talent in the room. If you aren't in Austin yet, we’ll help you get here, to make your transition to the Silicon Hills seamless.

**About the Interview**

1. Virtual interview (45 min via MS Teams)

2. Onsite interview in Austin (1.5 hr in-person)
## Skills

- GGY AXIS
- Security Clearance
- IntelliPDF CURVES
- Motor Control
- Incoming Quality Inspection
- SolidWorks
- EtherCAT
- Cooking
- Triage
- Vendor Qualification
- Robot Operating Systems
- Locking Mechanisms
- Robotics
- Systems Engineering
- Material Characterization
- Mil-std-810
- Python
- Servo Motors
- Design for Manufacturing (Dfm)
- Supplier Management
- Sourcing
- Agile Velocity
- Bearings
- Mechanical Systems
- Equipment Lubrication
- Motor Drives
- Electromagnetic Interference And Compatibility (Emc/emi)
- Commissioning
- Drivetrain
- Sensor Systems
- Modal Analysis
- Microsoft Dynamics
- Finite Element Analysis (Fea)
- MATLAB
- Servo Systems
- Electromagnetic Compatibility (Emc) Compliance
- Computer Vision
- Linear
- C++
- Supply Chain
- Auditing
- Actuation
- Computer-Aided Design
- Electric Motor Design
- Motion Control Systems
- Manufacturing Plant Equipment
- Diagnostics
- Electric Motors
- Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
- Actuators
- Cost Reduction
- Data Acquisition
- Thermal Cycling
- Shock Management
- Robotic Components
- Ansys Simulation Software
- Gearboxes
- Pulse-Width Modulation
- Budgeting
- Firmware
## Benefits

- Health Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Vision Insurance
- Paid Time Off (Pto)
- Relocation Assistance

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