# Nishanth Bhat > 🤖 Hardware @ Figure | Prev Engineering @ Tesla Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/nishanthbhat ## Work Experience ### Member of Technical Staff @ Figure Jan 2026 – Present | San Jose, California, United States Dextrous hands ### Manager, Mechanical Engineering @ Tesla Jan 2025 – Jan 2025 | Fremont, California, United States Tech and product lead for Model Y cabin. ### Senior Staff Mechanical Engineer @ Tesla Jan 2023 – Jan 2025 | Fremont, California, United States Manager and technical contributor towards development of next gen seating and safety architectures across all Tesla vehicle platforms. ### Staff Mechanical Engineer @ Tesla Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 Development of Cybertruck seating structures and Semi truck suspension seat architecture. ### Senior Mechanical Design Engineer @ Tesla Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | Fremont, California • Leading the structural design of seats on Model Y and Cybertruck. • Work closely with Design Studio, CAE, Reliability, Manufacturing and Supply chain on multiple vehicle programs • Responsible for bringing crash worthy structural castings to Tesla Seating portfolio and drastically reducing part count and complexity of seating structures. • Experienced in navigating through ambiguity and setting product requirements and laying out system architectures. • Experience managing Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers located across North America, China and Europe. ### Mechanical Design Engineer @ Tesla Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 Part of the Seats & Restraints Engineering team responsible for developing seating and safety systems across all current and future Tesla vehicles. ### Design Engineer @ LIFT by EnCore Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | Orange County, California Area LIFT is a company devoted to building the commercial aircraft seating. LIFT Tourist Class Seating is redefining the narrative for tourist class seating. We have created a product that meets a range of mission requirements, and is designed to deliver unparalleled maintainability and long lasting comfort to passengers. • Part of a small team of design engineers responsible for the development of a certified economy class seat. • Integral to the complete development of the seat from ground up, to production. • Responsible for the conceptual and detailed designing of various subassemblies of the seat, on CATIA V5. • Focal engineer for all R&D crash testing; responsible for design iteration of parts, ensuring timely building of test articles, setting up for tests and testing. • Responsible for physical static testing of components and subassemblies to ensure parts meet design requirements. • Rapid Prototype parts to check for functionality of design and ease of assembly. • Coordinate with manufacturers to ensure cost requirements are met for parts. ### Graduate Teaching Assistant @ Purdue University Jan 2016 – Jan 2016 | West Lafayette, IN TA for ME352- Machine Design 1, a junior level course on machine design. Responsibilities included- -Handling 2 lab sections containing 17 students each. -Delivering 4 lectures each week, to supplement the course lectures. -Planning, organizing and assisting students on the completion of lab projects, homeworks, and exams. -Grading projects and exams. -Holding office hours to help students understand the material better. ### Research and Development (CAE) Intern, New Product Innovation Team @ Berry Global, Inc. Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 | Evansville, Indiana Area Responsibilities- •Design and analysis of different kinds of packaging systems, using CAx tools. •Provide analytical and technical support to research and development department by analyzing the products through advanced non-linear finite element analysis •Perform static and dynamic structural FEA of injection molded and blow-molded packaging systems, using Altair Hypermesh and MSC Marc Mentat. •Perform FEA to determine different characteristics of products, such as top load, push-down force, squeeze force, hinge analysis, impact analysis, drop test and retort of plastic packages. •Perform laboratory tests to validate FEA results as well as collect various mechanical properties of materials, required for FEA. •Benchmark various design iterations based on requirements, by making alterations to the CAD (SolidWorks) and performing FEA on each design iteration. •Review designs, speak to engineers to understand the requirement and make design recommendations based on FEA results. •Perform mold flow analyses of injection molded parts using Autodesk Moldflow Insight, to determine the pack and fill characteristics during injection molding of components. ### Product Design Intern @ Intent Design Pvt Ltd Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 •Designed and developed the prototype of an innovative low power personal air-cooler. Associated with the complete life-cycle of product development from concept to prototype. •Key responsibilities started off by building a proof of concept, which was then followed by a brief market survey- based on which preliminary design of the product was made (CATIA V5). •The design underwent numerous iterations, before it was ready to be tested by means of a prototype. •Built a fully functional prototype in-house using sheet-metal, employing various processes like welding, laser cutting, bending and painting. •Unique selling point of this concept is the significantly lower power consumption and lower maintenance cost when compared to conventional air-coolers. •As a student intern and team lead, I was responsible for managing the work of 5 other interns over a period of 11 months, at the end of which, the prototype was successfully demonstrated within the deadline. ### Senior Editor and Content Writer @ The SJCE Editorial Board Jan 2011 – Jan 2014 | SJCE, Mysore The SJCE Editorial Board is solely responsible for publishing "Jayzine", the annual journal/magazine of Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering Mysore. Jayzine has consistently been awarded the Best College Magazine among any technical institutions in the state of Karnataka. In addition to publishing Jayzine, The SJCE Editorial Board also organizes "||shabd||", an arts and literary festival, which sees participation from over 3000 students across the state and country. It is the only festival of it's kind in the entire state of Karnataka. As a senior member of The SJCE Editorial Board, my responsibilities included content writing for the magazine, as well as managing the efforts of a team of 25 members in order to bring out the annual college magazine. I was also jointly responsible for organizing the annual festival, ||shabd||, which took place over a period of two days. Organizing an event that saw participation in excess of 3000 people, involved various tasks such as raising funds for the event, coordinating the efforts of 100-120 volunteers, scheduling of the various events, and careful planning and execution of the overall event. ### Summer Research Fellow, Low Speed Aerodynamics Laboratory @ Indian Institute of Science Jan 2013 – Jan 2013 Worked on the study and optimization of turbulent fluid flows over wall boundaries. ## Education ### Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering- Specializing in Design and Manufacturing Purdue University ### Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) in Industrial and Production Engineering Visvesvaraya Technological University ### +2 in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Computer Science Demonstration Multipurpose School ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nishanthbhat --- Source: https://flows.cv/nishanthbhat JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/nishanthbhat/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13