Senior Manufacturing Engineer - Assembly & Integration

Long Beach, CA

Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems that keep the world connected, protected, expand humanity’s reach to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. We move fast, build real hardware for meaningful missions, and make the impossible routine. Come shape the future with us.

MANUFACTURING

Manufacturing Engineering powers Rocket Lab’s factories from concept to full-scale production. We turn early ideas into manufacturable designs, build and optimize the systems that make them real, and constantly push for faster, better, smarter ways to build. We engineer the factories that build the rockets, boosting quality, cutting cost, and accelerating build rate.

SENIOR MANUFACTURING ENGINEER I - ASSEMBLY & INTEGRATION

This role focuses on improving manufacturing processes by conducting feasibility studies, supporting product design for manufacturability, and leading factory setup and optimization. It involves troubleshooting production issues, collaborating with cross-functional teams, driving process improvements, and supporting organizational efficiency through effective change management and business system enhancements.

WHAT YOU’LL GET TO DO:

• Prepare feasibility studies and conduct manufacturing technology Research & Development projects
• Partner with our Design Engineering teams to incorporate Design for Manufacture into our products to ensure robustness and manufacturability at scale
• Engineer and deliver our factories – design,procure, install,validateassembly,testand verification processes
• Support Development builds to uncover early learnings and resolve issues to accelerate the production ramp up
• Take engineering ownership of production lines to remove blockers, improveyieldand increase build efficiency
• Triage and diagnose failures, conduct deep technicalinvestigationsanddeterminethe right path forward including risk mitigation actions and root cause resolution
• Collaborate with cross functional teams to resolve complex issues
• Drive process improvements across manufacturing,testand integration
• Contribute to change management, assessing risk and impact of design or process changes
• Support business system and process improvements to drive increased organizational effectiveness and efficiency

YOU’LL BRING THESE

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Computer Engineering, or similar
• 5+ years of technical experience in a Manufacturing, Production, or Process Engineering environment
• Hands-on experience proactively identifying and solving systemic multifaceted problems in complex manufacturing systems
• Ability to effectively deliver on multiple complex multifaceted assignments simultaneously with autonomy
• Ability to effectively coach and mentor others to raise the bar across multiple teams
• Detailed technical knowledge in complex manufacturing processes

THESE QUALIFICATIONS WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE:

• Working experience with environmental acceptance/production acceptance testing, such as vibration, shock, thermal, and vacuum
• Understanding of instrumentation, interfaces, and sensors including power supplies, oscilloscopes, serial devices, switch topologies, accelerometers, thermocouples, RTDs, and 4-20mA sensors
• Experience with designing, implementing, and supporting a production line and/or build area
• Experience transitioning products from design to production as a part of cross‑functional team in a fast‑paced, iterative design environment
• Demonstrated experience with DFMEA, PFMEA methodologies, Fault Tree Analysis, Pareto analysis, root cause and corrective action
• Ability to effectively deliver on complex assignments with autonomy

This position may require prolonged periods of sitting,…