Fluid Systems Engineer

About Vale

Vale Matcha is a Seattle startup making magic through cutting-edge technology and automation. We are a dynamic and highly cross-functional team with Fortune 500 experience in food service, food automation, software engineering, aerospace, and consumer electronics.

We are developing the matcha experience of the future: unattended self-serve matcha bars that craft beautiful drinks from fresh ingredients.

The Role

We are seeking a hands-on Fluid Systems Engineer to help design, build, test, and refine the beverage systems inside our next-generation automated drink platform.

You will own critical fluidic subsystems as we move from prototype architecture toward reliable, cleanable, manufacturable machines. This role sits at the intersection of mechanical design, food-safe fluids design, component selection, clean-in-place workflows, and high-reliability electromechanical integration.

The primary focus will be our beverage subsystem, including ingredient routing, water and gas paths, pump and valve selection, manifold design, dispense repeatability, and cleaning/sanitization flows. Depending on your background, you may also contribute to foam generation, gas-liquid mixing, and other advanced beverage-preparation subsystems.

This is a strong mid-level role for an engineer who is comfortable taking ownership of complex subsystems, working hands-on in the lab, and collaborating closely with mechanical, electrical, controls, software, culinary, and operations teammates.

Key Responsibilities

• Fluidic Subsystem Ownership: Own the design, testing, and iteration of beverage plumbing subsystems, including pumps, valves, tubing, fittings, manifolds, sensors, nozzles, and routing architecture.
• COTS Component Selection & Validation: Research, select, source, and test commercial off-the-shelf pumps, valves, flow components, fittings, regulators, sensors, and other fluid-handling hardware.
• Clean-in-Place & Sanitation: Develop and validate clean-in-place concepts and fluid subsystem designs that support reliable day-to-day operation in a food/beverage environment.
• Fluid System Prototyping & Integration: Build, test, and iterate benchtop rigs and integrated prototypes for fluids subsystems, working cross-functionally to optimize dispense repeatability, cleaning performance, reliability, serviceability, and drink quality.
• Production Readiness & Risk Reduction: Identify and mitigate fluid-system failure modes while documenting designs, test plans, component specifications, BOM inputs, and supplier requirements to support scalable manufacturing and field service.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Process Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• 3+ years of hands-on industry experience designing, building, or testing fluidic, plumbing, process, dispensing, or electromechanical systems.
• Experience selecting and validating pumps, valves, tubing, fittings, manifolds, regulators, sensors, or similar fluid-system components.
• Strong understanding of fluid-system fundamentals, including pressure drop, flow rate, priming, venting, backflow prevention, dosing accuracy, and leak prevention.
• Comfortable building test rigs, running experiments, collecting data, troubleshooting failures, and turning test results into design improvements.
• Experience creating or working from P&IDs, plumbing schematics, test plans, component specifications, or engineering documentation.
• Ability to work hands-on in a fast-moving prototype environment with ambiguous requirements and evolving system architecture.
• Strong cross-functional communication skills and willingness to collaborate with mechanical, electrical, controls, software, culinary, and operations teammates.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience with food or beverage equipment, coffee or espresso machines, automated dispensing systems, lab automation, medical devices, chemical/process systems, robotics, or high-throughput kiosks.
• Experience with clean-in-place systems, sanitation workflows, food-safe materials, or equipment designed for repeated cleaning and daily operation.
• Familiarity with foam generation, gas-liquid mixing, carbonation, or two-phase flow.
• Experience integrating fluidic systems with sensors, controls, or embedded electronics.
• Familiarity with food-contact design considerations, sanitation best practices, and general regulatory expectations for commercial food or beverage equipment.

Project Impact

• You will join Vale at a critical inflection point as we move our core automation technology from concept design toward functional, reliable, and scalable hardware.
• Your work will directly shape the fluid architecture that makes our machine possible: how ingredients are stored, routed, dispensed, cleaned, purged, and maintained inside an unattended beverage platform. The systems you design will influence drink quality, uptime, sanitation, serviceability, reliability, and the customer experience of our first deployed machines.
• This is an opportunity to own meaningful subsystems in a complex real-world product, work closely with a small and highly capable team, and help define the future of automated beverage service.