Engineering Lab Manager

Castelion Corporation•Torrance, CA

35d

About The Position

An Engineering Lab Manager at Castelion owns the day-to-day operation, readiness, and continuous improvement of engineering laboratory facilities supporting rapid development, integration, and test of next-generation hardware. This role is responsible for ensuring engineering teams have safe, reliable, and capable lab environments, equipment, tooling, and resources to execute their work with speed and precision. The Engineering Lab Manager partners closely with engineering, manufacturing, facilities, safety, quality, IT, supply chain, and external vendors to establish and maintain laboratory capabilities, manage equipment and infrastructure, resolve operational constraints, and continuously improve lab efficiency and utilization.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, science, operations, facilities, or a related technical field with 3+ years of relevant professional experience; or 6+ years of relevant professional experience in engineering laboratory operations, test operations, manufacturing, facilities, or a related technical environment.
Hands-on experience operating or managing engineering laboratories, test facilities, manufacturing environments, or other technical workspaces.
Experience managing laboratory equipment, instrumentation, tooling, facilities, or test infrastructure.
Experience working in an environment requiring strong adherence to safety, operational, and technical procedures.

Nice To Haves

Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities with an emphasis on speed, precision, safety, and operational readiness.
Highly self-directed, adaptable, and capable of prioritizing competing requirements in a fast-paced engineering environment.
Proven ability to build and maintain effective relationships with engineering teams, facilities, safety, quality, supply chain, vendors, and external service providers.
Experience managing oscilloscopes, power supplies, electronic test equipment, environmental chambers, data acquisition systems, RF equipment, mechanical test equipment, fabrication tools, or similar engineering laboratory equipment.
Experience with equipment calibration, preventive maintenance, asset management, and equipment lifecycle planning.
Experience developing laboratory procedures, safety processes, equipment documentation, and operational standards.
Proficiency with technical and business tools such as MS Office, Excel, Smartsheet, Confluence, JIRA, Power BI, ERP/asset management systems, or similar platforms.
Experience developing dashboards, automated tracking systems, or other tools to improve laboratory utilization, equipment availability, and operational visibility.
Experience supporting hardware development, integration, qualification, or test in aerospace, defense, electronics, mechanical, propulsion, or other complex hardware environments.
Experience managing laboratory construction, facility modifications, equipment installations, or capital equipment projects.
Experience leading technicians, contractors, or cross-functional teams.
Demonstrated success driving continuous improvement initiatives using Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, or related methodologies.

Responsibilities

Own the day-to-day operation and readiness of assigned engineering laboratories, ensuring facilities, equipment, tooling, utilities, and supporting infrastructure are available and capable of meeting engineering requirements.
Establish and maintain lab operating procedures, standards, and processes that enable safe, efficient, and repeatable engineering development and test activities.
Coordinate lab scheduling and resource allocation across multiple engineering teams, balancing competing priorities and maximizing utilization of shared equipment and facilities.
Own the acquisition, installation, commissioning, maintenance, calibration, and lifecycle management of laboratory equipment, instrumentation, tooling, and test infrastructure.
Develop and maintain equipment and lab readiness metrics, identifying constraints, capacity gaps, maintenance requirements, and upcoming resource needs before they impact engineering schedules.
Partner with engineering teams to define laboratory requirements for new development programs, including equipment, instrumentation, facilities, utilities, environmental requirements, test capabilities, and supporting infrastructure.
Coordinate with facilities, EHS, IT, quality, security, and other support organizations to ensure laboratories meet applicable safety, regulatory, environmental, cybersecurity, and operational requirements.
Establish and maintain relationships with equipment manufacturers, calibration providers, service organizations, contractors, and other external suppliers to support lab operations and minimize equipment downtime.
Manage laboratory inventory, consumables, spare parts, tooling, and other resources required to maintain continuous engineering operations.
Develop and implement preventive maintenance, calibration, and equipment health programs to maximize equipment availability and reliability.
Identify, prioritize, and drive closure of lab operational constraints, including equipment failures, facility limitations, utility issues, material shortages, vendor delays, and resource conflicts.
Support rapid development and test activities by coordinating lab resources and enabling engineering teams to quickly configure, modify, and validate test environments as requirements evolve.
Develop and deploy opportunities to automate, standardize, and improve laboratory processes, reducing manual effort and increasing lab utilization, reliability, and engineering throughput.
Establish systems for equipment documentation, configuration control, calibration records, maintenance history, operating procedures, and lab asset tracking.
Lead investigations into equipment or lab-related failures that impact engineering activities and drive corrective actions to prevent recurrence.
Support capital planning and budgeting for laboratory equipment, facilities, tooling, and infrastructure based on current and projected engineering demand.
Support continuous improvement initiatives focused on safety, equipment availability, engineering velocity, cost reduction, quality, and overall lab efficiency.
Where applicable, lead and develop laboratory technicians, contractors, and other lab support personnel, establishing clear expectations for safety, execution, responsiveness, and technical capability.