Sr Manager, Manufacturing Engineering

Attalon is a leading innovator in advanced optical technologies, serving mission-critical applications across aerospace, defense, and scientific research. Our dedication to precision engineering, technical excellence, and continuous innovation has established us as a global leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance optical systems.

Senior Manager, Manufacturing Engineering

The Senior Manager, Manufacturing Engineering leads the optical fabrication and metrology engineering teams responsible for developing, optimizing, and sustaining production processes for high-performance optical components and assemblies. This role drives process capability, metrology robustness, yield improvement, and manufacturing efficiency across multiple technical areas including optical fabrication, diamond turning, material growth, assembly, and metrology.

The manager oversees continuous improvement initiatives, leads root-cause investigations, establishes factory-wide SPC discipline, and ensures all measurement methods and production processes are capable, cost-efficient, and aligned with customer requirements.

This is an on-site position based in Murrieta, CA, supporting high-value aerospace and defense optical products.

Primary Duties & Responsibilities

Team Leadership

• Manage and develop optical fabrication metrology engineers producing precision optical components and assemblies.

• Lead the development, validation, and improvement of optical fabrication processes to increase yield, reduce variation, and improve efficiency.

• Establish and maintain robust SPC across the factory; ensure processes are statistically stable and capable.

• Lead the metrology engineering team to design, qualify, and execute custom measurement methods and test setups. Ensure all metrology is fit for production use, supports process control, and guarantees customer requirements are met.

• Lead cross-functional root-cause analysis for yield loss, specification non-conformance, and process issues.

• Implement corrective actions using engineering controls, error-proofing, and data-driven methods.

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across all production areas to improve first-pass yield and throughput.

• Lead process development activities for new products, designing cost-efficient, scalable fabrication and metrology processes.

• Participate in design reviews and manufacturability assessments to ensure smooth transition from development to production.

• Review customer requirements during RFQ/RFP phases to determine feasibility, assess risk, and estimate engineering and production effort.

Strategic & Cross-Functional Responsibilities

• Collaborate on multi-year technology roadmaps, equipment planning, and capability development.

• Implement digital data-collection tools, analyze trends, and drive improvements based on quantitative insights.

Education & Experience

• Minimum 10+ years relevant experience, including 5+ years in engineering leadership.

• Technical degree in Optical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, or related discipline.

• Strong background in optical fabrication processes and associated metrology.

• Experience with low-to-medium volume, high-value, build-to-print manufacturing.

• Experience developing and sustaining production processes with SPC, DOE, and statistical tools.

Skills & Other Requirements

• Proven ability to lead engineering teams in high-precision advanced manufacturing or related industries.

• Strong problem-solving skills and a continuous improvement mindset.

• Experience with facility optimization and sustainment of fabrication equipment.

• Hands-on experience with optical fabrication, diamond turning, and optical metrology technologies is preferred.

• Familiarity with optical materials and materials growth processes is preferred.

• Effective communicator capable of presenting technical information to internal and external stakeholders.

For California, the salary pay range for this role is $127,930-$230,340. Please note this range is provided as a general guideline. When determining an offer, Attalon takes into account multiple factors, including (but not limited to) the…