Electro-Mechanical Assembly Technician

About Topanga

At Topanga, we’re transforming kitchen operations with AI-powered solutions that help leading commercial kitchens waste less and save more. Our products, including the award-winning ReusePass program and StreamLine, a food waste mitigation and workflow automation tool, are used by industry leaders to drive measurable impact and cost savings. Win. Win.

We’re an early-stage technology company with product-market fit, entering our next phase of explosive growth. We have a strong sense of mission and direction, accompanied by constant testing and iteration.

Our team is a passionate mix of technologists, foodies, designers, and problem solvers who believe that building efficient systems can create a future of abundance. We’re passionate about solving hard problems—through questioning, debate, and ultimately committing to a shared direction, we create solutions that matter.

What to Expect

Today, we're a remote-first team with a main office hub in LA, where the team goes in 2-3 days per week. The rest of our team is distributed across the U.S., with a growing presence in NYC. We strive to compensate and offer benefits that are above market for the given role and stage of the company. Pay may be a combination of salary, commission, and/or equity depending on role and seniority. Full time employees are eligible for health benefits and 401k enrollment.

You should expect an self-regulated PTO policy and a culture that promotes using at least three continuous weeks every year. (Yes, 12 days of camping with no cell service is encouraged—fresh air is good for us). We sign off at 2:30 p.m. on Fridays, observe long weekends, and respect that some days, you wake up and your head just ain’t in it.

We encourage each other's pursuit of hobbies, passions, and experiences outside of work. We acknowledge that careers tend to be zig-zags, not straight lines. This is great as long as the time spent working is fulfilling. Basically, our jobs do not define us, but they can add purpose.

Who you are

You are a technician who is experienced and comfortable using hand tools and power tools to assemble both robust metal structures (tube frames, sheet metal) and delicate electronics assemblies (PCBs, small-gauge wiring). To accomplish this work, you have some familiarity and experience with a broad range of tools and skills, and are motivated to utilize and improve those skills to produce a high quality output. You keep your work space and materials tidy and well-organized, and keep good records of your work products, which helps you be efficient. You recognize that a job well done the first time is always more efficient in the long run.

The main skills you will utilize in the assembly of Topanga’s current products are:

- Soldering for assembly and repair — wires, through-hole and surface mount components

- Mechanical assembly with hand and power tools — drilling, tapping, deburring, filing, sanding

- Cable assembly — stripping, crimping, testing, strain relieving

- Good ESD practices — assembling sensitive electronic components together into a system

As the company grows, your role will evolve to include the oversight of other technicians in the production of our current and future products. The rate of production will increase dramatically through 2025 and beyond, so assembly and test processes will need to become more standardized, efficient and clear in order to meet our goals. Ideally, you will also have experience developing work divisions for a small group of people, training them up on assembly processes and best practices, purchasing tools and components, tracking inventory, and interacting with suppliers/vendors.

There is plenty of room for creativity in this work. We would love to see someone come up with new ways to get the job done more efficiently. That might look like designing a drilling jig to increase speed and accuracy, organizing the work space so that it is logical to everyone (like the French chef’s term “mise en place”), creating a simple and effective inventory tracking system, finding safer ways to pack up products for shipping, etc. You will be joining the hardware team very early, and can have a large impact on the direction we go. Finally, you should be enthusiastic about learning new skills or ways of working, often by learning on your own. As our products change and the product line grows, adapting to the changing environment will be crucial, and there may not be an expert to lean on for everything.

What to expect in this role

Currently, much of Topanga staff works remotely and lives across the US. This works well for our current major product offerings, since they are largely software and web-based, with all off-the-shelf devices used. However, we are targeting for this newly-formed hardware team to be relatively local to Los Angeles, CA, in order to satisfy the needs of a well-functioning hardware development and production process. Therefore, people joining the hardware team will often work in an on-site or hybrid capacity. Folks are expected to come in to the shop when you need to be hands-on, whether you’re on your own or with other team members. When the work to be done is largely digital and interactions between team members can be handled virtually, working from home is acceptable. People in different roles will likely settle on different blends of being on-site versus remote. This may feel foreign to those used to working with an all on-site team, and while there is certainly some challenges associated with a hybrid team, we believe the benefits are far greater.

Due to the nature of this role, you should expect to be working mostly in the office/shop. Most of the physical labor will be low-strain but you may occasionally be required to lift heavy objects of up to 50 pounds, or move heavier items around with mechanical assistance, like a pallet on a pallet jack. Reasonable accommodations will be made to avoid repetitive strain and to maintain safety. No job is worth an injury!

Topanga’s clients are located all around the country, and there are times when they need in-person support for their hardware devices. You should expect to do some traveling to support these clients. It is difficult to predict the future, but we predict that up to 10% of your time will be spent traveling, though that percentage may be higher in a given week or month.

The Electro-Mechanical Assembly Technician role reports to the Head of Hardware.