Shift Robotics Inc. · Senior Mechanical Engineer · 2023 – Present
How I led the mechanical development of the world's fastest shoes — drivetrain architecture, weight reduction, manufacturing in China, and safety certification across four product generations.
The challenge: build the world's fastest shoes from first principles — carry 100 kg at 5 mph for 1 hour, with the entire drivetrain packaged inside the width of a shoe.
Takeaway: packaging drove the architecture, not power — the width of a shoe set the gear-ratio ceiling, and it took three failed drivetrains to prove the compound gearbox was the only answer.
The challenge: user feedback said the Original was too heavy — weight became the primary design constraint for a city-focused edition.
Takeaway: instrument before you commit — FLIR thermal imaging killed an appealing gearbox architecture early, before it could sink a full development cycle.
The challenge: the product only fit US shoe sizes 9–13, excluding smaller users — a significant market gap.
Takeaway: shrinking a proven architecture beats inventing a new one — reusing the compound gearbox meant the engineering risk was in packaging, not physics.
This generation is unreleased and covered by NDA. The full engineering breakdown is encrypted — it can only be viewed with an access password during a live conversation.
End-to-end mechanical ownership — from concept and analysis through supplier qualification and mass production.