Iron Ox
Manufacturing engineering for a robotic agriculture startup.
Between September 2021 and November 2022, I worked for Iron Ox; a Silicone Valley-based Agtech startup on a mission to pioneer a new type of automated greenhouse via robotics. I was hired as a Junior Manufacturing Engineer for our four-person Manufacturing team.
This role placed me at the intersection between mechanical designers, roboticists, software engineers, plant scientists, and farm operations managers. Our manufacturing team tied these disparate groups together by helping to design and test custom horticultural equipment, leveraging manufacturing vendor relationships to bring custom parts to life, and working with the farm operations team to integrate new equipment.
The crux of my work here was bringing up Iron Ox's flagship greenhouse facility in Lockhart, TX, which officially opened in April 2022. I traveled to Lockhart about once a month to install equipment, mark layouts on concrete slab, build and test prototypes, and troubleshoot non-conforming equipment. In addition to the greenhouse in Lockhart, we had a much smaller greenhouse in Gilroy, CA where I periodically traveled to install IoT equipment, conduct grow trials, and test prototypes.
I also led design efforts for several pieces of horticultural equipment, including hydroponic grow rafts, a plant propagation tub system, and carts/tables for operations needs.
On October 31, 2022, myself and about half of the company was laid off.
Check out some of the manufacturing process maps I illustrated here .
Between September 2021 and November 2022, I worked for Iron Ox; a Silicone Valley-based Agtech startup on a mission to pioneer a new type of automated greenhouse via robotics. I was hired as a Junior Manufacturing Engineer for our four-person Manufacturing team.
This role placed me at the intersection between mechanical designers, roboticists, software engineers, plant scientists, and farm operations managers. Our manufacturing team tied these disparate groups together by helping to design and test custom horticultural equipment, leveraging manufacturing vendor relationships to bring custom parts to life, and working with the farm operations team to integrate new equipment.
The crux of my work here was bringing up Iron Ox's flagship greenhouse facility in Lockhart, TX, which officially opened in April 2022. I traveled to Lockhart about once a month to install equipment, mark layouts on concrete slab, build and test prototypes, and troubleshoot non-conforming equipment. In addition to the greenhouse in Lockhart, we had a much smaller greenhouse in Gilroy, CA where I periodically traveled to install IoT equipment, conduct grow trials, and test prototypes.
I also led design efforts for several pieces of horticultural equipment, including hydroponic grow rafts, a plant propagation tub system, and carts/tables for operations needs.
On October 31, 2022, myself and about half of the company was laid off.
Check out some of the manufacturing process maps I illustrated here .