Manufacturing Engineer - Effectors

Manufacturing Engineer – Effectors

Location: Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
Employment Type: Full-Time
Work Arrangement: On-Site
Clearance: U.S. Citizenship and eligibility for a DoD security clearance required

An early-stage aerospace and defense technology company is developing a new generation of cost-optimized kinetic effectors designed for high-volume production.

The organization is transitioning from prototype development toward a manufacturing model capable of producing 100,000+ systems annually
. With product designs still evolving and manufacturing infrastructure being established, this is an opportunity for a Manufacturing Engineer to directly influence how the product is designed, built, tested, and ultimately scaled.

We are looking for a hands-on engineer who understands what it takes to move a product from prototype through high-rate production
, with particular strength in design for manufacturability, production processes, and practical hardware build experience.

This is not a role focused on maintaining an established production line. You will help build the manufacturing approach itself.

• Partner with mechanical, electrical, software, and systems engineers throughout product development and design reviews.
• Provide design-for-manufacturability and assembly (DFMA) guidance during preliminary and critical design reviews.
• Identify opportunities to simplify designs, reduce manufacturing cost, improve yield, and enable high-rate production.
• Evaluate product designs for producibility, assembly sequence, tooling, tolerances, and production constraints.
• Support prototype builds and early production directly, including mechanical assembly, soldering, troubleshooting, and hands-on hardware work.
• Support field testing and incorporate lessons learned into product and manufacturing improvements.
• Develop and maintain manufacturing documentation, including MBOMs, routings, work instructions, and manufacturing processes
  .
• Perform tolerance stack-up analysis and apply GD&T to support manufacturable designs.
• Use 3D CAD to interrogate designs, identify manufacturing issues, and make appropriate modifications.
• Work with internal teams and external manufacturing partners to transition designs into production.
• Evaluate manufacturing approaches across internal production and contract manufacturing options.
• Help establish repeatable manufacturing processes capable of supporting dramatically increased production volumes.
• Identify opportunities to reduce material, labor, tooling, and assembly costs while maintaining product requirements.
• Serve as a primary manufacturing point of contact for the effector product line.
• Provide technical direction and mentorship as the manufacturing organization grows.

• Mid-career to senior-level experience in manufacturing engineering, production engineering, or a closely related discipline
  .
• Demonstrated experience manufacturing products at high production rates
  .
• Experience taking products from prototype or early production into scaled manufacturing.
• Strong understanding of DFMA, GD&T, tolerance analysis, manufacturing planning, and production processes
  .
• Ability to work directly with 3D CAD models and make or recommend design changes based on manufacturing requirements.
• Proficiency with Solid Works, CATIA, Creo, AutoCAD, or a comparable CAD platform
  .
• Experience developing manufacturing documentation such as MBOMs, routings, work instructions, and process plans.
• Experience working with internal production teams, contract manufacturers, or both.
• Strong practical understanding of assembly processes and production constraints.
• Ability to operate effectively in a small, fast-moving engineering environment where priorities and designs can change quickly.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to influence design decisions without direct authority.
• U.S. citizenship and eligibility for a DoD security clearance.

The strongest candidates may have experience with:

• Aerospace or defense production programs involving high-rate manufacturing
  .
• Missile, interceptor, or other kinetic defense systems.
• High-volume robotics manufacturing.
• Automotive production environments.
• Semiconductor or other high-volume hardware manufacturing.
• Startup environments where manufacturing infrastructure was built from the ground up.
• Scaling production from zero or prototype quantities to high annual volumes.
• Working with contract manufacturers to industrialize a new product.
• Cost-down…