About
A decade in heavy industry, now working directly with the businesses of Chattanooga.
Sam Hoffman is a mechanical engineer based in Chattanooga, TN. He holds an MS and BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alabama and spent over a decade in industry — including roles at Astec Industries, Michelin, WestRock, Lear Corporation, and Daimler AG — before launching Hoffman Engineering LLC to work directly with small businesses.
Today he splits his time between mechanical design (sheet metal, weldments, CAD, prototyping) and helping local businesses implement AI and custom software. His clients are Chattanooga businesses — companies he knows, in industries he understands.
How I Work
Does it do the job?
The first pass is about the problem, not the part. Every requirement, load, interface, and constraint gets defined before anything is drawn. Most design failures trace back to a constraint nobody wrote down — this pass exists to make sure that never happens.
Is it buildable?
A design that can’t be built economically isn’t a design — it’s a drawing. The second pass optimizes geometry for the shop that will actually make it: your brake, your welder, your materials, your tolerances. Design-for-fabrication is baked in, not bolted on.
Is it right?
The final pass sweats the details that separate a workable design from a finished one: clean drawings, complete documentation, sensible revisions, and the small refinements that make a part hold up in the real world — and easy to make again next year.
Software & Tools