Printhead Mechanical Designer

About the role

Printhead Mechanical Designer (Specialist)

Why Print Matters

Printing remains one of HP's largest and most strategic businesses. HP Printing delivers solutions that power homes, small businesses, enterprises, and industrial manufacturing operations worldwide. From everyday document printing to packaging, commercial graphics, and digital manufacturing, HP's print technologies help customers transform ideas into physical products and experiences.

Innovation in print relies on world-class engineering across mechanical design, materials, manufacturing, reliability, fluidics, electronics, and systems integration. In this role, the Mechanical Engineering Designer will focus on printhead design that is reliable and manufacturable that enables industry-leading print quality, performance, and customer experience.

Role Overview

The Printhead Mechanical Engineering Designer is a technical contributor responsible for the design, development, and qualification of printhead components, assemblies, interfaces, and subsystems used in HP printing products and technologies.

In this role, you will work closely with cross-functional teams including writing systems, ink and materials, fluidics, systems engineering, manufacturing, reliability, quality, and suppliers to develop innovative print solutions that meet print quality, reliability, cost, sustainability, and schedule objectives.

You will contribute throughout the printhead development lifecycle, from architecture and concept generation through detailed design, prototyping, validation, product launch, and sustaining engineering.

What You Will Do

• Design printhead components, assemblies, and interfaces, including printhead bodies, lids, fluid-delivery features, seals, vents, fluidic interconnects and latches. This includes leveraging previous designs into new concepts.
• Create and maintain 3D CAD models, engineering drawings, specifications, tolerance analyses, and design documentation for printhead hardware.
• Apply Design for Manufacturability (DFM), Design for Assembly (DFA), Design for Reliability (DFR), and Design for Sustainability principles.
• Collaborate with writing systems, ink and materials, fluidics, electrical, manufacturing, quality, and reliability engineers to develop integrated printhead solutions.
• Support printhead prototype builds, engineering evaluations, and design verification activities, including dimensional, environmental, shipping, drop, life, and fluid-delivery testing.
• Conduct tolerance stack-up analyses, fit-and-function assessments, define mechanical, electrical, and fluidic interfaces with partners, and perform design trade-off studies for precision printhead interfaces.
• Select and evaluate plastics, elastomers, adhesives, films, foams, and other materials for chemical compatibility, dimensional stability, manufacturability, and long-term reliability.
• Work with tooling suppliers, component vendors, and manufacturing partners to optimize injection-molded parts and printhead assemblies for quality, cost, yield, and scalability.
• Participate in structured problem-solving activities using tools such as FMEA, root cause analysis, tolerance analysis, and Design of Experiments (DOE).
• Support product launch, manufacturing ramp, and transition of printhead designs into production.
• Drive continuous improvement in printhead performance, quality, manufacturability, cost, and engineering efficiency.
• Contribute printhead design knowledge, standards, and best practices across project teams.
• Ensure IP is documented and filed in the appropriate time.

Key Job Requirements

Education

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or related engineering discipline.
• Master's degree is a plus.

Required Technical Qualifications

• 4-6 years of experience in mechanical design, product development, or related engineering roles.
• Proficiency with 3D CAD modeling and engineering drawing creation for complex plastic parts and mechanical assemblies.
• Strong knowledge of geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) and tolerance stack-up analysis.
• Understanding of mechanical design principles, materials selection, injection molding, assembly processes, and design for high-volume manufacturing.
• Experience designing and testing mechanical and fluidic components and subsystems.
• Ability to define and verify mechanical interfaces, fits, seals, and functional requirements.
• Experience supporting verification, validation, and product qualification testing.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to use test and manufacturing data to guide design decisions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing printhead, ink-delivery components, or other fluid-containing precision products.
• Knowledge of injection-molded plastics, elastomers, adhesives, films, foams, springs, and precision mechanical assemblies.
• Experience with fluidic interfaces, venting, sealing, leak prevention, ink-material compatibility, and dimensional control.
• Experience working with molders, tooling suppliers, automation partners, and high-volume contract manufacturers.
• Familiarity with printhead reliability, environmental testing, shipping robustness, and product qualification processes.
• Understanding of NPI (New Product Introduction), tooling qualification, manufacturing ramp, and sustaining engineering lifecycles.
• Experience with statistical analysis, DOE, FMEA, root cause analysis, or reliability methodologies.

Success Factors

Successful candidates will demonstrate

• Strong mechanical design fundamentals with attention to precision interfaces and fluid-containing products.
• Curiosity and a passion for printhead innovation.
• Ability to balance print quality, fluidic performance, reliability, cost, manufacturability, sustainability, and schedule.
• Effective communication and collaboration across writing systems, materials, manufacturing, quality, and reliability teams.
• Ownership and accountability for printhead design deliverables from concept through production.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic product development environment.
• Continuous learning mindset and commitment to engineering excellence.

Pay and benefits

The pay range for this role is $106,100 to $158,800 USD annually with additional opportunities for pay in the form of bonus and/or equity (applies to United States of America candidates only). Pay varies by work location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Benefits

Hp offers a comprehensive benefits package for this position, including:

• Health insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Long term/short term disability insurance
• Employee assistance program
• Flexible spending account
• Life insurance
• Generous time off policies, including;
• 4-12 weeks fully paid parental leave based on tenure
• 11 paid holidays
• Additional flexible paid vacation and sick leave (US benefits overview)

The compensation and benefits information is accurate as of the date of this posting. The Company reserves the right to modify this information at any time, with or without notice, subject to applicable law.

Job

• Engineering
• Schedule -
• Full time
• Shift -
• No shift premium (United States of America)
• Travel -
• Not Specified
• Relocation -
• Yes