- Start date: TBD
- Application deadline: Open
- Location: Montreal Studio, Canada (must have the right to work in Canada)
- Experience: Intermediate or Senior
- To apply: Send your portfolio, CV, and a short note about why you’d be a great fit to career@punctuatedesign.com
- Subject line: Freelance mechanical designer / engineer 2026
Punctuate is looking for a freelance mechanical engineer to extend our team on live product development mandates. We develop physical products from strategy through manufacturing, and we bring in trusted freelance engineers to add capacity when projects stack up. This is a hands-on role for someone who can take a validated concept and drive it toward a manufacturable, well-documented product. Hybrid: on-site at our Montreal studio for prototyping and reviews, remote for CAD work.
What you'll do
- Turn concepts into parts. Take a validated design direction and develop it into detailed, manufacturable CAD, mechanisms, and assemblies
- Prototype and test. Build and iterate physical prototypes, validate function and document what works
- Design for manufacturing. Work through materials, tolerances and processes so the product can actually be made
- Document cleanly. Produce the drawings, specs and BOMs that let a supplier build with confidence
- Ask the right questions early. Surface the technical risks that decide whether a product ships or stalls
What we're looking for
- Intermediate to senior experience in mechanical engineering for physical product development, with products that reached production
- Strong CAD: Fusion 360, SolidWorks or equivalent, with production-ready modeling
- Real prototyping instincts and comfort with 3D printing and physical testing
- A solid grasp of manufacturing processes: injection molding, tooling, assembly
- Reliable, self-directed, and clear in communication, the way good freelance work has to be
- Comfortable in French or English
- Must have the right to work in Canada.
Bonus if you've worked on consumer products, health and home, or family and childhood categories.
The studio
Punctuate Design is a physical product development studio based in Montreal, working from strategy through manufacturing. We're partners to our clients, not executors: we're invested in the product's commercial success, not just its delivery. Our zone of excellence is the emotional link between a product and its end user, held in the tension between radical creativity and executional rigor.
How we work with freelancers
- Project-based mandates, with clear scope and timelines set up front
- A hybrid rhythm: studio time for prototyping and reviews, remote for focused CAD
- Direct collaboration with design leads, no layers to go through
- A prototyping shop on-site
- Ongoing collaboration for the right fit, not just a one-off
Apply
Send your portfolio, CV, and a short note on why you'd be a great fit. Show us products you've taken to production and the engineering decisions behind them.
We answer every application.
career@punctuatedesign.com — subject: "Freelance mechanical designer / engineer"
