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Manufacturing Engineer – Effectors

Location: Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
Employment Type: Full-Time
Work Arrangement: On-Site
Clearance: U.S. Citizenship and eligibility for a DoD security clearance required

About the Opportunity

An early-stage aerospace and defense technology company is developing a new generation of cost-optimized kinetic effectors designed for high-volume production.

The organization is transitioning from prototype development toward a manufacturing model capable of producing 100,000+ systems annually. With product designs still evolving and manufacturing infrastructure being established, this is an opportunity for a Manufacturing Engineer to directly influence how the product is designed, built, tested, and ultimately scaled.

We are looking for a hands-on engineer who understands what it takes to move a product from prototype through high-rate production, with particular strength in design for manufacturability, production processes, and practical hardware build experience.

This is not a role focused on maintaining an established production line. You will help build the manufacturing approach itself.

What You'll Do

• Partner with mechanical, electrical, software, and systems engineers throughout product development and design reviews.
• Provide design-for-manufacturability and assembly (DFMA) guidance during preliminary and critical design reviews.
• Identify opportunities to simplify designs, reduce manufacturing cost, improve yield, and enable high-rate production.
• Evaluate product designs for producibility, assembly sequence, tooling, tolerances, and production constraints.
• Support prototype builds and early production directly, including mechanical assembly, soldering, troubleshooting, and hands-on hardware work.
• Support field testing and incorporate lessons learned into product and manufacturing improvements.
• Develop and maintain manufacturing documentation, including MBOMs, routings, work instructions, and manufacturing processes.
• Perform tolerance stack-up analysis and apply GD&T to support manufacturable designs.
• Use 3D CAD to interrogate designs, identify manufacturing issues, and make appropriate modifications.
• Work with internal teams and external manufacturing partners to transition designs into production.
• Evaluate manufacturing approaches across internal production and contract manufacturing options.
• Help establish repeatable manufacturing processes capable of supporting dramatically increased production volumes.
• Identify opportunities to reduce material, labor, tooling, and assembly costs while maintaining product requirements.
• Serve as a primary manufacturing point of contact for the effector product line.
• Provide technical direction and mentorship as the manufacturing organization grows.

What We're Looking For

• Mid-career to senior-level experience in manufacturing engineering, production engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience manufacturing products at high production rates.
• Experience taking products from prototype or early production into scaled manufacturing.
• Strong understanding of DFMA, GD&T, tolerance analysis, manufacturing planning, and production processes.
• Ability to work directly with 3D CAD models and make or recommend design changes based on manufacturing requirements.
• Proficiency with SolidWorks, CATIA, Creo, AutoCAD, or a comparable CAD platform.
• Experience developing manufacturing documentation such as MBOMs, routings, work instructions, and process plans.
• Experience working with internal production teams, contract manufacturers, or both.
• Strong practical understanding of assembly processes and production constraints.
• Ability to operate effectively in a small, fast-moving engineering environment where priorities and designs can change quickly.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to influence design decisions without direct authority.
• U.S. citizenship and eligibility for a DoD security clearance.

Particularly Relevant Experience

The strongest candidates may have experience with:

• Aerospace or defense production programs involving high-rate manufacturing.
• Missile, interceptor, or other kinetic defense systems.
• High-volume robotics manufacturing.
• Automotive production environments.
• Semiconductor or other high-volume hardware manufacturing.
• Startup environments where manufacturing infrastructure was built from the ground up.
• Scaling production from zero or prototype quantities to high annual volumes.
• Working with contract manufacturers to industrialize a new product.
• Cost-down initiatives and margin optimization at significant production volumes.

Experience operating an established production line can be useful, but candidates who have personally helped build or scale manufacturing capability will be particularly well suited.

What Success Looks Like

Within the first year, you will help:

• Improve product designs for manufacturability and cost.
• Establish repeatable manufacturing processes for prototype and early production.
• Build the documentation and process infrastructure needed for scale.
• Identify and resolve production bottlenecks before they become major constraints.
• Support the transition from manual prototype builds toward increasingly structured production.
• Establish manufacturing approaches capable of supporting high-volume annual production.
• Build strong working relationships with engineering, suppliers, and manufacturing partners.

Why This Role

This is an opportunity to join an engineering organization while its manufacturing capability is still being built.

You will have meaningful influence over both product design and manufacturing strategy, rather than inheriting mature processes that are already established. The scale of the planned production environment creates significant engineering challenges around cost, throughput, manufacturability, and reliability.

For a Manufacturing Engineer who enjoys hands-on hardware development and wants to help take a product from prototype to high-rate production, this role offers substantial ownership and technical impact.

Compensation & Benefits

Target base salary range: $110,000–$160,000, with flexibility based on experience and market conditions.

The company offers a competitive benefits package and a hands-on, high-ownership engineering environment.

This is a full-time, on-site position in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area.