Propulsion Engineer (Dragon)

SpaceX • Hawthorne, CA

2d

About The Position

The Propulsion Engineer (Dragon) owns propulsion and/or environmental and thermal subsystem piece parts and assemblies throughout manufacturing, focusing on delivery timelines, safety, and part quality. The role develops and qualifies production processes, resolves manufacturing discrepancies in collaboration with design engineering, production, and quality teams, and supports assembly production, high-pressure testing, and hardware integration. It also identifies and implements equipment and layout upgrades to meet production demand, while eliminating process waste and driving continuous improvement.

The position may require extended work hours and weekend work, and involves working directly with hardware on the floor for extended periods. Applicants must meet applicable U.S. Government export-control requirements, including qualifying U.S. citizenship or immigration status, or eligibility to obtain required authorizations.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline or physics.
• At least 1 year of hands-on experience driving the design, building, testing, manufacturing, or development of mechanical components or systems.
• Meet U.S. Government export-control requirements: be a U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee, or be eligible to obtain required U.S. Department of State authorizations.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in aerospace, mechanical, systems, or manufacturing engineering.
• Experience with design for manufacturability and assembly.
• Experience with welding, machining, and coating processes.
• Knowledge of chemistry, engineering, fluid dynamics, and mechanics of materials.
• Experience conducting pressure and leak testing using instrumentation such as helium mass spectrometers, flow meters, pressure transducers, and thermocouples.
• Experience with capacity modeling, process mapping, and fault analysis.
• Experience performing Pareto analysis and root cause and corrective action.
• Experience performing PFMEAs.
• Familiarity with CAD and experience with geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T).

Responsibilities

• Own piece parts and assembled propulsion and/or environmental and thermal subsystems throughout manufacturing, focusing on delivery timelines, safety, and part quality.
• Develop and qualify new processes to move products from design to production.
• Resolve manufacturing discrepancies for owned parts and processes in collaboration with design engineering, production, and quality teams.
• Support day-to-day production of assemblies, high-pressure testing, and hardware integration.
• Identify, plan, and execute capital equipment, machine, and layout upgrades to meet volume production demand.
• Find and eliminate process waste, streamline production processes, and enable continuous improvement.

What This Job Offers

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