Senior Mechanical Engineer

Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses succeed in a digital world, helping business owners operate, increase sales, engage customers, and keep employees happy.

Team Overview

Toast’s hardware team is responsible for designing and developing top-tier hardware devices. We operate as a streamlined team that emphasizes the essential aspects of pos (point of sale), payment devices, and accessories, while crafting our devices to provide optimal hardware solutions for our clientele. Through our close interactions with customers, we have identified the crucial design features that render our devices genuinely restaurant-grade. Our focus is on the long-term dependability of our devices, ensuring that our customers can rely on their toast hardware without concern, allowing them to be prepared for another bustling day.

A day in the life of a Mechanical Engineer (Responsibilities)

As a Senior Mechanical Engineer, your responsibilities will include the design, analysis, and prototyping of new products; testing and validation of products ready for launch; and providing support to Sustaining Engineering throughout the lifecycle of Toast hardware products. You will operate within a product-focused development environment and collaborate with both Toast's internal cross-functional teams and external suppliers to design and deliver products through to production. Given the highly competitive nature of our industry, you will be required to innovate and create iconic devices for the rapidly evolving POS hardware sector. A robust mechanical design background, meticulous attention to detail, comprehension of critical design processes, and familiarity with fast-paced development cycles are essential. You will be expected to collaborate closely with cross-functional teams in operations, product development, industrial design, program management, project management, and hardware to define and deliver exceptional products. We empower small teams to achieve significant results in a dynamic work environment.

• Design and create the mechanical elements of POS devices and their subsystems. drawing on knowledge and experience from the development of payment devices.


• Create part designs and mechanical systems, guiding them from initial concept through to production with full ownership per product engineering development team.


• Formulate test plans and product specification documents for both internal evaluations and external clients.


• Work in collaboration with a cross-functional team to produce devices of exceptional quality.


• Gain an understanding of the restaurant environment and design products that can withstand it.


• Identify the root causes of various issues (design, manufacturability, production) to enhance designs and ensure successful mass production of products.


• Design with considerations for functionality, reliability, human factors, manufacturability, and aesthetic requirements.


• Address reliability failure and quality concerns related to products currently in use by Toast customers in the field.


• Leverage cutting edge AI tools to enhance your development workflow, improve velocity, and help pioneer new approaches to building - contributing to a culture of innovation and productivity across the team.

What you'll need to thrive (Requirements)

• Proven ability to collaborate effectively with hardware, mechanical engineers, project teams, industrial designers and electrical engineers.


• At least 10 years of pertinent work experience in the design of consumer, enterprise, and/or handheld products.


• Proficient in CAD tools, including CREO, Windchill, and PDM processes.


• Demonstrated expertise in defining and interpreting Finite Element Analysis (FEA) for compliant mechanisms, along with proficiency in GD&T (Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing) and related industry concepts. Proven application of statistical tolerance analyses and various design analysis methodologies.


• Experience in mechanical design and manufacturing processes utilizing plastic, glass, rubber, metal, PCB/FPCB, soft goods, and opto-electronic physical designs utilized in electronic products.


• Familiar with decorating technologies such as painting, anodization, plating, printing, and coatings.


• Experienced in part/tool qualification for manufacturing readiness.


• Practical, hands-on troubleshooting experience (including root cause analysis, 8D reports, corrective actions, etc.).


• Experience in supporting overseas manufacturing builds, requiring up to 25% of business trips both domestically and internationally (to assist with manufacturing and quality assurance during product launches; opportunities to visit global manufacturing sites and contract manufacturing partners' factories).


• Experience in launching new products to market (to monitor engineering timelines and deliverables, utilizing global engineering resources to enhance efficiency and reduce time-to-market).


• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively across teams with a strong emphasis on teamwork (to foster relationships with leadership, cross-functional team members, and peers through team-building activities and growth opportunities, operating as One Team).


• A Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering.

Preferred qualifications:

• Delivered numerous products by different development models, such as Internal Development process, JDM, OEM and ODM Product Development processes.


• Familiarity with PCI compliance.


• Understanding of the Point of Sale (POS) industry.


• Proficient in Android-based devices.


• Expertise in materials, including characteristics of plastic resins in relation to part-level quality.


• Design experience with mechanisms, such as hinges.


• Experience in sustaining engineering roles for products utilized by customers in the field.


• Knowledgeable in Six Sigma quality development tools and principles, including Design of Experiments (DOE) and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA).


• Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

AI at Toast

At Toast, one of our company values is that we're hungry to build and learn. We believe learning new AI tools empowers us to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality. We provide these tools across all disciplines, from Engineering and Product to Sales and Support, and are inspired by how our Toasters are already driving real value with them. The people who thrive here are those who embrace changes that let us build more for our customers; it’s a core part of our culture.

Our Total Rewards Philosophy We strive to provide competitive compensation and benefits programs that help to attract, retain, and motivate the best and brightest people in our industry. Our total rewards package goes beyond great earnings potential and provides the means to a healthy lifestyle with the flexibility to meet Toasters’ changing needs. Learn more about our benefits at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits.