Manufacturing Engineer (TPS)

About This Role

As a TPS (Thermal Protection Systems) Manufacturing Engineer at Varda, you will have the opportunity to utilize your experience to scale manufacturing from a few bespoke vehicles to many consistent, concurrent builds. This role would support thermal protection systems production, including heatshield layup, cure operations, bonding, and composite inspection. The TPS ME owns Varda's in-house heatshield manufacturing capability, including ceramic matrix composite and ablative material processes."

Manufacturing Engineers will be a vital part in increase Varda's build cadence working directly with design engineers and technicians for a broad array of processes (structures, thermal protection systems, propulsion, and avionics components) required to manufacture our vehicles. The focus of the job is to implement incremental improvement for every vehicle Varda produces. 

Responsibilities 

• Provide technical direction to improve build processes to scale and hit increase vehicle cadence
• Collaborate with other engineers and technicians to solve large-scale production challenges
• Refine floor layouts, capacity models, and product flow analysis
• Develop and implement standardized processes for vehicle integration 
• Assess cost of increasing work cell capabilities and proposing plans to increase internal capabilities
• Proactively coordinate with technicians team and supply chain to prevent schedule delays
• Review work instructions to make change recommendations when required and identify tooling/training gaps
• Identify and resolve non-conformance issues - implement root cause corrective actions

Basic Qualifications

• B.S. degree in mechanical, manufacturing, or aerospace engineering
• 1-4+ years of manufacturing experience
• Teamwork, communication (verbal and written), and problem solving in a collaborative environment 
• Proven experience working on complex technical programs, preferably within aerospace or related industries  
• Strong first principles thinking
• Hands-on experience building complex vehicles
  • Must be physically able to regularly lift 25 lbs.  
  • Must be comfortable bending, stooping, and standing 
  • Hands-on position may require standing and working directly with hardware on the floor 

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Knowledge of aerospace vehicle systems
• Experience with project management of the full lifecycle of a project 
• Experience transitioning complex assemblies from development to production, including developing the factory systems and floor layouts to make that possible
• Experience with aerospace hardware development practices (e.g., qualification testing practices, cleanliness, ESD, grounding, etc.)  
• Experience across structures, propulsion, materials/thermal protection systems, and/or avionics production
• Prior work in a technical role for a launch vehicle or satellite development effort
• Experience with tooling design and analysis using 3D CAD software
• Experience using factory layout design tools (e.g. SketchUp, Autodesk, Draw.io, etc...)

 

Pay Range

• Salary Range:
  • Eng I/II: $109,000-139,000
  • Senior: $140,000-179,000
• This role is on-site in El Segundo, CA
• Leveling and base salary is determined by job-related skills, education level, experience level, and job performance
• You will be eligible for incentives in the form of stock options and/or long-term cash awards