Manufacturing Engineer (Early Careers)

GKN Aerospace•Tallassee, AL

About The Position

As a Manufacturing Engineer, you will support both production and development programs by ensuring manufacturing execution through strong process design, practical problem solving, and continuous improvement. This role involves applying competent working knowledge of composite materials and processes while implementing advanced manufacturing methods across material handling, tooling, fabrication, and assembly.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Materials Science, or a related field.
6+ months of experience in aerospace composite manufacturing, including fabrication, tooling, or autoclave/oven-cure processes.
Working knowledge of composite materials and production methods such as layup, bonding, and cure.
Must be a U.S. Person per ITAR regulations to comply with export compliance requirements.

Nice To Haves

Proficiency with PFMEA, control plans, SPC, or other process‑control tools.
Experience with NDI/NDT techniques (ultrasonic, X‑ray, tap test).
Familiarity with composite machining, trimming, secondary bonding, or assembly.
Leadership or mentoring experience in a manufacturing environment.
Lean, Six Sigma, or related continuous‑improvement training.

Responsibilities

Develop, validate, and sustain manufacturing processes for prepreg layup, autoclave cure, bonding, NDI and NDT, machining, and assembly of composite components.
Create manufacturing plans, ply books, process specifications, and tooling requirements for complex composite structures.
Lead root cause and corrective action activities using structured problem solving methods.
Evaluate and introduce new composite materials, tooling concepts, and cure technologies to improve capability, quality, and cost.
Collaborate with design engineering on design for manufacturing, materials selection, laminate definition, and configuration control.
Support proposals by preparing labor estimates, tooling strategies, and plans for process development.
Drive continuous improvement projects that reduce scrap, rework, cycle time, and process variability.

Benefits

We’ll offer you fantastic challenges and amazing opportunities.
This is your chance to be part of an organisation that has proven itself to be at the cutting edge of our industry; and is committed to pushing the boundaries even further.
And with some of the best training on offer in the industry, who knows how far you can go?
Everyone is welcome to apply to GKN.
We believe that we can only achieve our ambitions through a coming together of diverse minds who enjoy collaborating in an inspirational environment.
Through our commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging and by living our five powerful principles we’ve created a culture where everyone feels welcome to contribute.
It’s a culture that won us ‘The Best Workplace Culture Award’.
By embracing and celebrating what makes us unique we encourage everyone to bring their full self to work.
We’re also committed to providing an accessible recruitment process, so if you require reasonable adjustments at any stage during our recruitment process please get in touch and let us know.
We are the place where human dreams, plus human endeavour, shape the future of aerospace innovation and technology.