Solar Installer Labor Jobs in Portland, OR (NOW HIRING)

Production Engineer - Materials and Manufacturing

Salary: $140,000 - $150,000

Our client is developing and commercializing a modular nanogrid system designed to provide reliable, resilient power for large homes, small commercial facilities, and mission-critical applications. Their product integrates solar, battery storage, grid power, generator input, and advanced power electronics into a scalable system that can serve as a primary power platform for customers who need dependable energy.

Our client is entering into a commercial execution and scale-up phase and is seeking a Manufacturing / Production Engineer who can strengthen production processes, manage build readiness, support inventory planning, and help ensure that customer systems are manufactured and installed on schedule. This role will sit onsite in the San Jose area.

The Manufacturing Production Engineer will support the transition from engineering design to reliable, repeatable production. This person will help improve manufacturing processes, assembly workflows, quality controls, work instructions, production documentation, inventory planning, and supply chain coordination.

This role is responsible not only for how systems are built, but also for ensuring that the required parts, materials, tools, and documentation are available before each system build and installation. The ideal candidate is hands-on, highly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable working across engineering, production, operations, inventory, suppliers, and installation scheduling.

This is an important role for a growing hardware company where production quality, inventory accuracy, supplier lead times, and customer installation schedules must be tightly coordinated.

• Develop, improve, and maintain production processes for product assembly, testing, shipment, and installation readiness.
• Translate engineering designs into clear, repeatable production workflows.
• Create and maintain work instructions, assembly procedures, checklists, quality-control documents, and production travelers.
• Work with engineering and technicians to identify and resolve assembly, wiring, mechanical, documentation, and process issues.
• Support production planning by helping define labor requirements, tooling needs, workstation setup, material flow, and assembly sequencing.
• Review bills of materials, drawings, production documentation, and customer-specific configuration details for accuracy and completeness.
• Help ensure that production builds match the approved engineering design, customer requirements, and installation scope.
• Identify opportunities to reduce errors, improve efficiency, shorten build time, and increase production consistency.
• Support incoming inspection, in-process inspection, final inspection, and test-readiness processes.
• Help create root-cause analysis and corrective-action processes for production or quality issues.
• Collaborate with engineering on design-for-manufacturing, design-for-service, and design-for-installation improvements.
• Support production readiness for new product revisions, customer-specific configurations, and field upgrades.
• Work with TUV or similar agencies to get some or all of manufacturing to meet applicable UL certification or ISO compliance requirements.

• Maintain accurate visibility into current inventory, including what parts are in stock, where they are located, and whether they are allocated to specific customer builds.
• Work with engineering, operations, and production to determine which parts are required for upcoming system builds, installations, upgrades, and service work.
• Compare upcoming build requirements against available inventory and identify shortages before they affect production or installation schedules.
• Track inbound parts, open purchase orders, expected arrival dates, supplier commitments, and delivery delays.Maintain or help improve inventory tracking systems, part lists, BOMs, reorder points, and build-specific materials checklists.
• Help define minimum stock levels, safety stock requirements, reorder points, and preferred stocking strategies for critical components.
• Track supplier lead times, minimum order quantities, pricing, and ordering constraints for key parts.

• Support production and installation schedules by ensuring that material availability is reviewed early and continuously.
• Help determine when purchase orders need to be placed so parts arrive in time for scheduled system builds and customer installations.
• Develop forward-looking materials plans based on the production schedule, expected customer projects, supplier lead times, and installation commitments.
• Communicate material risks clearly to leadership, engineering, production, and operations.
• Support vendor coordination, supplier follow-up, and escalation when critical parts are delayed.
• Identify opportunities to qualify alternate suppliers or substitute parts where appropriate, in coordination with engineering.
• Help reduce emergency purchasing, expedited shipping, stockouts, and schedule disruptions.
• Support continuous improvement of the company's purchasing, receiving, inventory, and production-readiness processes.

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, supply chain, operations, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience in production, manufacturing, assembly, process engineering, manufacturing operations, materials planning, inventory control, supply chain coordination, or a related hardware environment.
• Ability to read and interpret engineering drawings, bills of materials, assembly instructions, and technical documentation.
• Strong understanding of how BOMs, inventory, purchasing, production schedules, and build readiness connect in a manufacturing environment.
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to production quality.
• Experience creating or improving work instructions, checklists, production procedures, inventory processes, or manufacturing documentation.
• Strong spreadsheet skills and comfort working with inventory trackers, build plans, BOMs, lead-time tables, and purchasing data.
• Ability to track multiple parts, suppliers, deadlines, and build requirements at the same time.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to troubleshoot production or material-availability issues systematically.
• Comfortable working hands-on with technicians, engineers, tools, parts, physical assemblies, and inventory.
• Ability to organize complex information and turn it into clear, repeatable processes.
• Comfortable working in a startup or fast-changing production environment.

• Experience with battery systems, energy storage systems, solar equipment, power electronics, electrical cabinets, control panels, industrial equipment, or other electromechanical systems.
• Experience with low-volume, high-complexity hardware manufacturing.
• Experience with inventory management, materials planning, purchasing coordination, supplier follow-up, production planning, or build-readiness reviews.
• Familiarity with BOM management, part numbering, revision control, receiving processes, cycle counts, reorder points, safety stock, lead times, and minimum order quantities.
• Familiarity with ERP, MRP, inventory, or BOM tools such as OpenBOM, NetSuite, QuickBooks, Fishbowl, Katana, Odoo, Google Sheets, Excel, or similar systems.
• Experience supporting UL, electrical, safety, or product-certification-related documentation is a plus.
• Experience improving production layout, tooling, fixture design, assembly flow, warehouse organization, kitting, or technician training.
• Experience working with vendors, contract manufacturers, distributors, electrical component suppliers, or fabrication suppliers.