Lead Manufacturing Engineer, Mesh Optical (Starmind)

SpaceX • Bastrop, TX

10d

About The Position

SpaceX is seeking a Lead Manufacturing Engineer for optical transceiver production. The role owns manufacturing engineering strategy and production execution across the factory, including scaling production lines, deploying automated production cells, improving yield and throughput, and building the team needed to sustain production. The engineer will own the relationship between process and production teams and contribute to the design and development of new and existing hardware. The role supports manufacturing for current and next-generation Starlink products and AI compute.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline.
• 5+ years of experience working with automated integration lines, high-volume electronics manufacturing, or similar.
• 1+ years of experience leading a team of engineers, either as a project leader or as a leader in a professional environment with direct reports.
• Available to work extended hours and/or weekends as needed.
• Willingness to travel as needed.
• Must meet the stated U.S. government export-regulation eligibility requirements or be eligible to obtain required authorizations.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with micron-scale assembly, optical alignment, or die/chip-level packaging processes.
• Experience hiring, mentoring, and developing engineering organizations.
• Experience implementing or evolving MES and production data systems.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a data-driven approach to factory performance.
• Demonstrated ownership of yield and ramp performance in complex hardware manufacturing environments.
• Experience scaling automated production lines beyond pilot and NPI into sustained high-volume manufacturing.
• Background in semiconductor, photonic, advanced packaging, or precision electro-optical manufacturing.
• Experience scaling manufacturing operations in high-growth hardware companies, including standing up new lines or factories.
• Experience with factory automation architectures, including robotic handling, machine vision, and in-line metrology.
• Familiarity with statistical process control, process capability analysis, and reliability qualification methodologies.
• Experience managing relationships with equipment vendors and integrators for custom or semi-custom production tooling.
• Experience with cleanroom or controlled-environment manufacturing operations.

Responsibilities

• Own manufacturing engineering strategy and production execution across the factory, including line scaling, capacity planning, and production readiness for new products.
• Design and scale automated production cells for precision electro-mechanical and optical assemblies, integrating robotics, alignment systems, inspection, and test automation.
• Own product-to-manufacturing handoff with mechanical, process, and optical engineering teams, and provide design-for-manufacturability and design-for-assembly feedback during product development.
• Define and evolve production workflows, material flow, line layout, and inventory and traceability systems to support growing volume and product complexity.
• Lead hardware-side MES integration and factory data system development to support real-time decision-making, traceability, and continuous improvement.
• Own factory performance metrics, including yield, scrap, throughput, uptime, cycle time, and reliability, and drive systematic improvement against targets.
• Build, lead, and develop the manufacturing engineering organization, including production engineering and production leadership roles, scaling the team with factory growth.
• Partner with supply chain and procurement to qualify incoming materials and components and ensure supplier quality supports production yield targets.
• Establish and maintain manufacturing process documentation, control plans, and qualification procedures.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior