Senior Manufacturing Engineer - Interceptor Assembly | Take an Air Defense Interceptor from Development Builds to High-Rate Production

Gardena, CA | On-site

Opportunity Summary

A Series A, venture-backed defense company is moving its low-cost air defense interceptor out of development and into high-rate production, and is hiring a senior manufacturing engineer to own how that hardware gets built. Output is climbing from roughly a hundred units a month toward a thousand, and this engineer will define the processes, tooling, documentation and controls that make the ramp possible.

This role lives on the production floor. You will partner every day with technicians and with design, quality and test engineers to stand up new capabilities, close out build problems and turn complex electromechanical assemblies into a line that runs safely and repeatably. You will have wide latitude to make decisions, and as the program grows you will help shape how the product is divided across a larger manufacturing team.

About Us

We are a Series A, venture-backed defense technology company in the Los Angeles area building affordable air defense systems designed for high-volume production. Our team includes engineers and operators from leading commercial space, defense technology and electric vehicle companies, and we design and build our subsystems in house so we can iterate and test quickly. Our focus now is taking proven prototypes into production at a scale traditional defense supply chains struggle to reach.

Job Duties

• Own the manufacturing approach for interceptor assemblies, maturing early builds into processes that can support a high-rate program
• Define build sequences, process flows, station layouts, tooling needs and manufacturing controls
• Write and maintain work instructions, travelers and inspection criteria, and prove them out on real builds with technician input
• Keep production documentation in sync with released drawings, BOMs, engineering changes and as-built configuration
• Lead DFMA input to design reviews on access, tolerancing, tooling, inspection and testability, using lessons from the floor to simplify assembly
• Run PFMEAs with design, quality and test, and turn the results into process controls, inspection points and instruction updates
• Design, deploy and debug fixtures, tooling, production equipment and production test systems
• Train technicians, resolve build issues as they happen and feed shop-floor lessons back into the process
• Support nonconformance dispositions, root cause investigations and corrective actions with quality and design
• Track yield, cycle time and defects, and drive open issues across teams to closure as volume ramps

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical, manufacturing, industrial, electrical or aerospace engineering, a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience
• 3+ years of manufacturing engineering experience on complex electromechanical hardware
• Experience authoring work instructions and process flows within configuration-controlled documentation
• Comfortable reading engineering drawings and bills of material
• Hands-on DFMA, PFMEA and structured root cause analysis, with a record of turning findings into implemented changes
• Experience developing and bringing up tooling, fixtures, manufacturing equipment or production test systems
• Working knowledge of manufacturing cost estimation
• Strong ownership and communication, with the judgment to move forward on incomplete information and coordinate across teams
• U.S. person as defined by ITAR

Preferred Experience

• Regulated quality environments with serialized traceability, nonconformance and change control processes
• MES or ERP systems in a production setting
• SolidWorks for tooling and fixture design
• Automated test equipment, or acceptance of production equipment from suppliers
• Scaling hardware from low-rate to high-rate production in defense, automotive or consumer electronics
• Missiles, munitions, drones or other flight hardware

Why Join Us

• Own production of the company's flagship product through a major ramp
• Clear path to lead part of a growing manufacturing engineering team
• Direct line between your work and hardware fielded for national defense
• Well-funded Series A company with strong demand
• Small, experienced team where you see the impact of every improvement
• Competitive salary with meaningful early-stage equity

Compensation Details

$125,000 - $175,000 + equity

ITAR Requirement

This position requires access to technical data controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Applicants must be U.S. persons as defined by 22 CFR 120.62.