7percent Ventures
Founding Engineer (Stealth Startup)
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Flexible, deformable materials are one of the last unsolved problems in physical automation. 7percent Ventures is working with an early-stage stealth startup building software-defined production systems leveraging intelligent material handling. The company is funded, building in London.
We're looking for a hands-on founding engineer to design, instrument, and improve our first production cell from scratch.
What the first year looks like
Rather than a wish list, here's what you'd actually be measured on:
First 90 days
- Instrument the full workflow yourself, then come back with a ranked list of automation targets scored on minutes saved × frequency × feasibility × cost.
- Build and test two prototypes against the top of it.
By 6 months
- Two systems running in live production, each cutting handling time on its operation by 30% or more, without pushing defect rates up.
By 12 months
- One system through 1,000 production cycles with documented failure modes, MTBF and maintenance needs, written up so another engineer could rebuild it from your drawings without asking you anything.
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Responsibilities
- Design the layout and workflow of the first production cell
- Instrument machines with sensors, cameras, lighting and job tracking
- Capture real production data: cycle time, idle time, defects, rework, bottlenecks
- Build jigs, fixtures, guides and operator-assist tools that make messy manual steps measurable and repeatable
- Prototype handling systems for flexible materials - alignment, feeding, positioning, gripping, transfer between operations
- Wire physical events into the software and data layer
- Source equipment, components, tools and fabrication partners
What we're looking for
- ~3-8 years in mechatronics, automation, robotics, manufacturing systems or hardware prototyping. What you've built matters far more than how long you've been doing it.
- You've personally taken physical systems from design → build → commissioning → operation. Not simulated, not specified for someone else to build.
- Strong across mechanical, electrical and practical build work - comfortable with CAD, sensors, cameras, microcontrollers, edge devices and rapid prototyping
- Enough software to make hardware talk to data: scripts, APIs, logging, simple machine-control interfaces
- A real pull toward hard physical problems involving deformable or flexible materials
- Side projects. Things you built because you wanted them to exist.
- Systems thinker, strong bias to build, comfortable in early-stage ambiguity
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This is a founding role, not a graduate one. Mechatronics rewards generalists, and every generalist has gaps - we'd far rather hear about yours than watch you work around them.
Bonus
- Flexible-material or web handling, soft robotics, end-effectors, feeding or alignment systems
- Machine vision, QC systems or test rigs in a production setting
- Physics simulation, digital twins, or sim-to-real workflows
Details
- Full-time, London, hands-on in the production environment.
- Salary plus meaningful founding equity, reflecting experience and the founding nature of the role.
- Starting December 2026 (flexible).
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