Senior Pilot Production Technician, Structures

About the Company

We are a renewable energy and ocean technology company committed to rapidly developing and deploying technologies that will ensure a sustainable future for Earth by unlocking the vast energy potential of its oceans. Our focus is on capturing civilizational levels of ultra-low-cost renewable energy for applications including computing and affordable renewable fuels delivered to shore.

The company is a public benefit corporation headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and backed by leading venture capitalists, philanthropic investors, university endowments, and private investment offices. We operate as an idea meritocracy in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis.

Our staff have worked at organizations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Tesla, Apple, Virgin Orbit, Astra, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, New Relic, Bridgewater, Raytheon, Disney Imagineering, and the US Army and Air Force, as well as research universities, startups, and small companies across a range of industries.

Our core technology is the node, a device that produces energy in the ocean’s harshest conditions for years at a time without human maintenance or intervention.

We are getting ready to build fleets of these Nodes, and that means standing up a manufacturing system that can produce the hulls as well as the internal subsystems  Pilot Production team will be the first crew whose primary focus is producing components utilizing mass production techniques. We will help to test, define, refine, and document the processes so that Panthalassa can rapidly scale into mass production.

This team is data and process driven, improvement focused, and willing to step in wherever needed.

The Senior Pilot Production Technician, Structures will support a range of critical new processes and existing heavy steel fabrication in our pilot manufacturing site in Vancouver, WA. This role will both support internal pilot manufacturing functions, and also assist in supporting Node fabrication at our neighboring contract manufacturing partner. This is a hands‑on role that requires onsite presence, with many opportunities to work cross functionally with the engineering and quality departments.

Candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis.

• Support day to day pilot production operations across a variety of equipment and processes including plate rolls and various types of fit & weld equipment
• Assist in developing work instructions and standard operating procedures for pilot equipment
• Triage and resolve machine downtime, yield issues, or cycle time issues
• Complete production testing campaigns on pilot equipment
• Track and ensure on‑time completion of tasks as required to meet production goals
• Act as first point of contact with our primary contract manufacturing partner, working closely with their production staff to help coordinate day‑to‑day activities
• Support adherence to build plans and proposed order of operations during node construction
• Assist in developing production KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators)
• Communicate redlines, production delays, and non‑conformances to internal engineering teams to ensure quality and delivery targets are met
• Perform weld and dimensional inspections (if qualified)
• Participate in new equipment development campaigns including design brainstorming, prototyping and implementation of new equipment at pilot scale
• Assist in the implementation and maintenance of the MES (Manufacturing Execution System

• 8+ years of experience in a heavy steel fabrication production environment
• Experience…