# Chris Bilger-Salinas > Senior Mechanical Design Engineer Location: Sunnyvale, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/chrisbilgersalinas I am a mechanical design engineer with experience in high volume consumer electronics, outdoor-rated enclosures, and flash data storage, with particular focus on manufacturability, usability, and sustainability/repairability. I am driven by curiosity and take a hands-on approach to tackling and solving real-world problems, with a passion for learning new things and making a (positive!) difference in the world. ## Work Experience ### Senior Mechanical Design Engineer @ NVIDIA Jan 2025 – Present | Santa Clara, California, United States ### Dean's Council Member @ Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth Jan 2023 – Present | Hanover, New Hampshire, United States Advising the Dean of the engineering school on vitality and direction of the school from the perspective of early-career professionals ### Sustainability Strategy Lead - Nest, Pixel Watch, & Pixel Buds products @ Google Jan 2023 – Jan 2025 | Mountain View, California, United States - Self-taught SME focusing on end-user and environmental impacts (carbon, waste, human) of our products, creating tools and streamlining processes to achieve year over year sustainability improvements across product categories. - Spearheaded Watch & Tablet cross-functional longevity collaboration to exceed emerging repair regulations. - Lead Watch Design-For-Repairability study on factory floor in Vietnam, testing UX and repaired device reliability, provided real-time design feedback, and drove design improvements for next prototype iteration. - Define year over year improvements for all product categories, scaling recycled content (plastic, cobalt,tungsten, metal, and rare earths) with minimal cost impact (<10%). - Engage executives to secure support for sustainability goals, ensuring quality and performance alignment. ### Nest Sustainability Strategy Lead TPM @ Google Jan 2022 – Jan 2025 | Mountain View, California, United States ### Product Design Engineer @ Google Nest Jan 2017 – Jan 2022 | Mountain View, California, United States Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen) - Design engineer responsible for Battery, Metal Bangle & integration, & Sensors PCBA. - Validated & shipped 1st Google product with recycled cobalt despite $0.07 cost adder, leading to all future product adoption in Google HW portfolio. - Owned critical bangle (dial) cosmetic design and system integration, including hall sensor rotation detection. - Avoided 1dB antenna degradation working with EE, RF, ESD, & Sensors teams on critical bangle grounding design without impact to premium bangle “feel” for user (confirmed with Manufacturing, ID, UX). - Initiated & increased wall screw manufacturing yields by 4% to save cost, impacting all shipping thermostats. - Identified & drove all sustainability work without quality impact, including a pilot on track to eliminate 200+ tonnes of redundant component packaging, simultaneously saving over $300K in product production costs. Nest Thermostat (2020) - Design engineer responsible for ultrasonic welded backplate assembly with remote FATP build experience during COVID.\ - Modified off-the-shelf BP connectors to improve product’s end-user usability, prevent mechanical breakage, improve cosmetics, increase speed of assembly, and meet Google safer chemistry requirements. - Identified user installation challenge and drove design improvements (with ID impact). - Spearheaded 1st time validation of 75% PCR resin content on the BP “charcoal” SKU, successfully increasing system-level PCR plastics by 4.6% and enabling 75% PCR resin use across the Google HW product portfolio. - Created a serviceability scorecard and drove the product serviceability analyses across Nest portfolio. - Patents: USD948354S1 ; USD975556S1 Nest Hub Max (2019) - Designed custom camera module with gasket & interconnect, main logic board (MLB) PCBA, enclosure fabric wrap, volume buttons PCBA with interconnect, and thermal interface materials. - Patent: US20200110443A1 ### Product Design Engineer @ Google - Daydream Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Mountain View, California, United States Designed & successfully manufactured antennas and power & custom headset jack PCBAs, interconnects, buttons, light guides, and trim-pieces (MIM with PVD finish) with system integration of components ### Mechanical Engineer for OSP/ISP @ Google Fiber Jan 2015 – Jan 2017 | Mountain View, CA - Responsible for enhancing Google Fiber’s OSP/ISP products and build techniques. This was accomplished through in-house design development, working with vendors for new innovations, and managing contract manufacturers to produce high-impact solutions to OSP/ISP issues - Designed underground vault for outdoor fiber equipment & performed FEA analyses for load testing capacity. ### Mechanical Design Engineer @ Pi-Coral Jan 2013 – Jan 2015 | San Jose, CA - 1 of 2 ME’s at startup designing a 2nd generation 16RU flash storage chassis. - Personally reduced cost from previous gen by 40%, screw count by 60%, # unique parts by 40%. -Redesigned the previous product to improve performance, manufacturability, and cost on next generation products: including PCA & mechanical fits, reduction in number of unique parts & fasteners, structural integrity, thermal (transient/ steady state) & airflow analyses (FEA, CFD, & extensive lab testing), ease of manufacturing & assembly. -Perform first assembly and first article inspections of new parts, with clear documentation of issues and solutions. -Took prototype product through EMI / EMC pre-scanning with subsequent design modifications. -Collaborating closely with the thermal engineer, manufacturing, and electrical engineering teams to provide holistic design solutions supported by the entire company. ### Machine Shop TA @ Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | Hanover, NH -Assist students in the machine shop on machining parts for class projects and research -Taught over 50 students how to run the machines, what tools were available to them, and how to think “out of the box” in order to finish their engineering course projects. -Machines used: Prototrak mill, lathe, laser cutter, MIG welder ### Intro to Engineering Course TA @ Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College Jan 2012 – Jan 2012 | Hanover, NH TA for a term-long project course -Managing a team of four undergraduates taking their first engineering course -Project course aimed at need finding, prototype development, and testing -Received award for Best Intro to Engineering Course Teacher's Assistant out of 16 total TA's ### Mechanical Engineering Intern @ Speck Design Jan 2012 – Jan 2012 | Palo Alto, CA Responsible for a light source enclosure design for a pharmaceutical treatment project, conducting thermal FEA simulations and lab testing to ensure user safety. -Designed the light source enclosure in SolidWorks -Created several foam prototype locking mechanisms for enclosures considering human factors - ease of use. -Conducted thermal simulations in SolidWorks and tested on a physical model -Created a static calculations spreadsheet to determine system stability based on component parameters -Economic analysis information accumulated for the device's market viability ### Mechanical Engineering Intern @ Speck Design Jan 2011 – Jan 2011 | Palo Alto, CA Worked as a product design engineer on the telepresence robot design team (Beam, by Suitable Technologies) -Provided dynamic simulations in Working Model for possible chassis and prototype designs -Did static calculations by hand for different prototype designs -Modeled prototype components in SolidWorks -Ran user testing for past prototypes and helped with component research and sourcing - Ran user testing for Beam prototypes and used data to drive dock design ### Chemistry Hardware Intern @ GE Nuclear Energy Jan 2010 – Jan 2010 | Sunol, CA -Led my own Pt Injection Skid pump chemistry experiments -Devised set of instructions for pump set-up to standardize process and look at a new way to mitigate problems -Wrote Test Plans & Procedures, follow-up reports, presentations, and other lab-related write-ups -Verified and reviewed reports, drawings, and other documents -Compiled ECP and BRAC databases ### Spanish Tutor @ Tutor Clearinghouse at Dartmouth College Jan 2008 – Jan 2009 -for levels 1 and 2 ### Field Manager/Canvasser @ Environment California Jan 2008 – Jan 2008 -Raised $6000 over summer period, averaged $210 per day -Office was in top 5 for canvasser gross, canvasser average (of 60+ offices in U.S.) ### Field Manager/Canvasser @ Human Rights Campaign Jan 2008 – Jan 2008 -Top 5 for average contributions of $34, top 5 “yes” rate of 26% (# contributors/ # people talked to) ## Education ### Masters of Engineering Management Dartmouth College ### BE in Mechanical Engineering Dartmouth College ### BA in Mechanical Engineering Dartmouth College ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/christenbilger --- Source: https://flows.cv/chrisbilgersalinas JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/chrisbilgersalinas/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-05