Contract Ship Welder Jobs in Decatur, AL (NOW HIRING)

Job ID: 2615173
Location: Huntsville, AL, US
Date Posted: 2026-08-04
Category: Engineering and Sciences
Subcategory: Mechanical Engr
Schedule: Full-Time
Shift: Day Job
Travel: Yes - 10% of the time
Minimum Clearance Required: Interim_Secret
Clearance Level Must Be Able to Obtain: Secret
Potential for Remote Work: ORA_ON_SITE
Description
SAIC is seeking an experienced Senior Mechanical Manufacturing Engineer to lead the design, development, optimization, and scaling of manufacturing processes for mechanical products and assemblies. This role bridges product engineering and operations, ensuring designs are robust, cost-effective, manufacturable, and capable of meeting quality, safety, delivery, and production-volume requirements. This role is onsite in Huntsville, AL in both office and manufacturing-floor environments. The role may require occasional travel to supplier sites, contract manufacturers, or other company locations. Appropriate personal protective equipment may be required when working in production areas.
The ideal candidate combines strong mechanical engineering fundamentals with deep hands-on expertise in machining, fabrication, assembly, tooling, process validation, and continuous improvement within a manufacturing environment.
Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the development, implementation, and optimization of manufacturing processes for mechanical components, subassemblies, and finished products.
• Partner with product design and R&D teams to ensure designs meet Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) principles from concept through production release.
• Develop manufacturing work instructions, process flow diagrams, standard operating procedures, routings, bills of materials, and technical documentation.
• Design, specify, and validate production tooling, fixtures, gauges, test equipment, and automated or semi-automated assembly systems.
• Evaluate and improve machining, welding, sheet-metal fabrication, casting, molding, coating, assembly, and inspection processes, as applicable.
• Support new product introduction activities, including prototype builds, pilot production, process qualification, first-article inspection, and production ramp-up.
• Conduct manufacturing feasibility reviews and identify risks related to tolerances, materials, assembly sequence, ergonomics, equipment capacity, quality, and cost.
• Investigate process failures, nonconformances, scrap, rework, yield losses, and customer-return issues; lead root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions.
• Apply Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, statistical process control, and continuous-improvement methodologies to improve throughput, quality, safety, and cost performance.
• Establish and monitor key process metrics, such as cycle time, first-pass yield, overall equipment effectiveness, scrap rate, labor efficiency, and manufacturing cost.
• Collaborate with Quality, Supply Chain, Production, Maintenance, and external suppliers to resolve manufacturing and supplier-related technical issues.
• Support supplier selection, qualification, process audits, and capability assessments for externally manufactured components and assemblies.
• Develop capital-equipment justifications, define equipment requirements, support vendor selection, and oversee equipment installation and acceptance.
• Mentor junior engineers and technicians and provide technical leadership across cross-functional manufacturing projects.
• Ensure manufacturing processes comply with applicable safety, quality, environmental, and regulatory requirements.

Qualifications
Education Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a closely related discipline and nine (9) years of mechanical engineering or manufacturing engineering experience in a production environment. Additional six (6) years' experience can be considered in lieu of degree (per contract vehicle).

Clearance Requirements:

• Must possess an active Secret security clearance; ship required.

Required Qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience taking mechanical products or assemblies from prototype through production launch and volume manufacturing.
• Strong knowledge of mechanical design principles, materials, tolerance analysis, GD&T, drawings, and engineering change control.
• Hands-on experience with one or more manufacturing processes, such as:
  • CNC machining.
  • Sheet-metal fabrication.
  • Welding and joining processes.
  • Mechanical assembly.
  • Injection molding or other molding processes.
  • Casting, forging, or extrusion.
  • Surface finishing, coating, or heat treatment.
• Experience designing fixtures, jigs, gauges, tooling, and production-support equipment.
• Proficiency with CAD software and the ability to interpret and create detailed engineering drawings.
• Strong understanding of DFMA, process capability, validation methods, root-cause analysis, and corrective action.
• Experience with Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, value-stream mapping, 5S, and/or other continuous-improvement tools.
• Ability to communicate effectively with engineering, production, quality, suppliers, and leadership teams.
• Proven ability to manage multiple technical projects, priorities, and production issues in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or a related field.
• Professional Engineer license, Six Sigma Green Belt/Black Belt, Lean certification, or equivalent.
• Experience in a regulated or high-reliability manufacturing environment.
• Experience with automation, robotics, machine vision, PLC-controlled equipment, or industrial controls.
• Familiarity with ERP, PLM, MRP, MES, and quality-management systems.
• Experience with tolerance stack-up analysis, finite element analysis, simulation, or process modeling.
• Experience leading capital projects, factory-layout improvements, or manufacturing-line expansions.

SAIC is a premier technology integrator providing full life cycle services and solutions in the technical, engineering, intelligence, and enterprise information technology markets. SAIC is Redefining Ingenuity through its deep customer and domain knowledge to enable the delivery of systems engineering and integration offerings for large, complex projects. SAIC's approximately 15,000 employees are driven by integrity and mission focus to serve customers in the U.S. federal government. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, SAIC has annual revenues of approximately $4.5 billion. For more information, visit saic.com. For information on the benefits SAIC offers, see .