Sr. 3D Process Engineer

Department: Research & Development

Location: US-California-San Jose

Compensation: $135,200 - $185,900 / year

Align Technology’s 3D Printing Process team is seeking a Sr. 3D Process Engineer to join our San Jose, CA location. This in‑person role involves hands‑on, in‑lab research and development focused on advancing additive manufacturing process control. The successful candidate will lead targeted R&D initiatives to solve fundamental process problems, serve as a subject matter expert in additive manufacturing, and collaborate with cross‑functional teams to support regulatory submissions, process validation, and technology transfer activities.

• Independently operate new additive manufacturing equipment and post processing equipment.
• Perform material and product testing using standard and non-standard material testing equipment.
• Collect, maintain and organize data in accordance to internal standards and quality requirements.
• Participate, and lead select weekly and bi‑weekly technical meetings with cross‑functional groups.
• Present data, findings, and ideas to the process and cross‑functional teams on a weekly basis.
• Use statistical tools to analyze, interpret, and present experiment results.
• Be responsible for writing, maintaining, and transferring work instructions to manufacturing teams.
• Be responsible for writing, maintaining and supporting protocols for process and equipment qualifications and process transfer.
• Be responsible for writing work instructions for core Process R&D activities.
• Work closely with cross functional collaborators to support and to receive support on major project milestones.
• Serve as SME for design for additive manufacturing (DFAM) to support printing and post process development.
• Operate, collect and analyze data from polymer characterization equipment to support fundamental research in the area process‑structure‑property explorations.
• Apply your expertise in process‑structure‑property relationship exploration to study, and tune process to match desired performance and accuracy metrics.
• Use and develop methods to collect, process and analyze data from advanced metrology techniques like CT, CMM and similar equipment.
• Be responsible for collection, processing and analysis of orthodontic performance data for exploring the relationship between process and performance.
• Collaborate with the manager to identify, plan, and assemble core team to support independent R&D topics. Independently design, setup and execute experiments to study process‑structure‑property relationships for polymer AM systems for the purpose of understanding/optimizing the manufacturing process.
• Lead and delegate tasks to Jr. team members and technicians supporting the R&D activities.
• Create, evaluate, support prototyping of equipment, jigs, fixture and tools necessary for manufacturing process internally or with external support.
• Maintain vendor relationships and be responsible for design review and release of custom equipment.
• Study and develop metrics to explore the process capability of end‑to‑end pilot manufacturing process for R&D products.
• Serve as lead for development of acceptance metrics, process performance criterion, and in‑process monitoring criterion.
• Lead activities related to test method development and validation.
• Lead and support the planning, execution and documentation of experiment results and analysis for regulatory submissions.
• Serve as SME for internal and external audits related to process development and optimization.
• Provide the requirements for manufacturing software such as support generation, slicing, layout etc.
• Serve as a technical liaison for manufacturing software development, prototyping (coding, code editing), and testing plan.
• Support and participate in calibration, spirit committee, and safety programs.
• Foster collaboration with cross functional teams, support onboarding of Jr. engineers.
• Work in a fast‑paced environment and meet critical deadlines.
• Problem solve issues with attention to detail.
• Actively coach, motivate, mentor and provide leadership to peers and Jr. engineers.

• MS degree in mechanical or Biomedical Engineering (other scientific disciplines…