Principal, Manufacturing Design Engineer

Firestorm Labs is seeking a Principal, Manufacturing Design Engineer to join our engineering team in San Diego. You will be in an individual contributor role and will need to be as comfortable in a design review as on the shop floor. You'll join the aircraft design team at the start of a program, make sure what we design can be built well, and then carry that work through process design, tooling, and the transition into production.

You will move with the program. Early on, you're a member of the design team, bringing DFM/DFA input before the design is locked. As the design matures, your focus shifts to process design, tool and fixture design, ground support equipment, and shipping solutions, and to handing the product off to our manufacturing operations team. This role reports to the SVP of Engineering.

• Design team member:
  Serve on the aircraft design team from program inception, contributing design work on structures, parts, and assemblies alongside the rest of the team.
• DFM/DFA:
  Drive DFM/DFA from day one. Review designs early and often, bring manufacturing constraints and cost drivers into trade studies, and push for parts and assemblies that are simpler to build, inspect, and assemble.
• Design and drawings:
  Create and release models and drawings in NX, and in Solid Works where needed, applying GD&T per ASME Y14.5 and model-based definition practices.
• Configuration management:
  Work in our PLM system at the level of a design lead, managing releases, revisions, and engineering changes, and keeping design, tooling, and process data aligned.
• Process design:
  Define the manufacturing approach for new products across composites, metallics, assembly, fastening, bonding, integration, inspection, and test. Develop the process roadmaps and supporting documentation through each design review gate.
• Tooling and fixtures:
  Design composite layup tools, trim and drill fixtures, bond fixtures, assembly jigs, and inspection and test fixtures that can be duplicated and used at every Firestorm production site, including regional and deployed production.
• Ground support and shipping:
  Design ground support equipment and shipping, handling, and logistics solutions for production, test, and fielded systems.
• Tool procurement and commissioning:
  Support tool procurement, supplier technical questions, tool proofing, and commissioning in partnership with the manufacturing team.
• Transition to production:
  Hand off process roadmaps to the Manufacturing Engineering team to develop into full production documentation, and support early builds as the product moves into manufacturing operations.
• Cross-functional problem solving:
  Work with design, manufacturing, quality, and supply chain to resolve producibility issues, support root cause investigations, and feed lessons learned back into the design.
• Perform other duties as needed.

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Aerospace, Manufacturing, or related discipline). Experience in lieu of a degree will not be considered.
• 'U.S. Person' as defined by 22 CFR § 120.62 required due to ITAR regulations , which includes U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (Green Card holders), or protected individuals under asylee or refugee status
• 10+ years of engineering experience in aerospace or defense, spanning design, tooling, manufacturing engineering, or NPI.
• Hands-on experience with composites and metallics manufacturing, assembly, fastening and bonding, integration, inspection, and test.
• Experience designing production tooling, including composite layup tools, trim and drill fixtures, bond fixtures, and assembly jigs.
• Experience designing ground support equipment and shipping or handling solutions.
• Experience with Siemens NX, and working…