Technical Trainer – Manufacturing & Composites

Firefly Aerospace•Briggs, TX

About The Position

The Technical Trainer builds, delivers, and continually improves training and development programs for manufacturing employees, from onboarding through ongoing career development. The role combines hands-on teaching with program design: training employees on company and employee systems, manufacturing processes and documentation, and technical production skills while creating structured pathways that help new hires ramp up, reinforce skills, and measure training effectiveness. The trainer learns Firefly’s composites manufacturing lifecycle in partnership with technicians, engineers, Quality, and other subject-matter experts, including by spending time on the manufacturing floor. They turn that knowledge into scalable, technology-enabled curricula and use training data to identify trends and inform engineering and operations teams. The position works in both classroom and active manufacturing environments.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Manufacturing, Mechanical, Industrial, Aerospace, or a related engineering discipline, or equivalent hands-on manufacturing engineering experience.
At least 3 years of experience in a manufacturing, aerospace, or production engineering environment, with direct exposure to processes, tooling, and hardware on the manufacturing floor.
Strong curiosity and drive to understand how things work and why each process step matters.
Ability to explain processes in detail and break complex technical work into clear, logical, teachable steps.
Enjoys working with people and can build trust with technicians, engineers, and new hires across the shop floor and classroom.
Self-starter who takes ownership of ambiguous problems, creates structure, and drives programs forward independently.
Ability to quickly learn software, employee systems, manufacturing processes, and technical concepts.
Ability to translate complex technical information into practical instruction and comfort presenting to groups.
Ability to read, understand, and explain technical procedures, work instructions, drawings, and manufacturing documentation.
Ability and willingness to learn the full composites manufacturing process, from material preparation through completed hardware.
Comfort working in both classroom and active manufacturing environments.
Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.

Nice To Haves

Experience as a Manufacturing or Process Engineer developing work instructions, standard operating procedures, or process documentation used for training.
Prior experience teaching, mentoring, or formally training technicians, peers, or new engineers.
Hands-on technician or skilled-trade background before moving into engineering.
Familiarity with adult-learning, instructional-design, or Train-the-Trainer concepts, or eagerness to develop them.
Experience designing onboarding or ramp-up programs and measuring their effectiveness, such as through time-to-productivity or competency tracking.
Experience using data and analytics to identify trends and drive process or program improvement.
Experience authoring e-learning or interactive content, or administering an LMS.
Experience with ERP, MES, HRIS, document-control, quality, or manufacturing systems.
Experience in aerospace, defense, automotive, aviation, or another high-rigor technical environment.
Exposure to composites manufacturing processes such as layup, bonding, vacuum bagging, curing, autoclave operations, trimming, or finishing.

Responsibilities

Deliver engaging instructor-led classroom, small-group, and hands-on technical training tailored to different experience levels and learning styles.
Teach employees to use company and employee systems, including timekeeping, learning and training systems, and manufacturing documentation, and to access work instructions, drawings, specifications, and production records.
Teach documentation, traceability, and manufacturing process requirements, including composites material handling, tool preparation, layup, bonding, vacuum bagging, curing, autoclave operations, trimming, finishing, and inspection.
Design and own a structured onboarding program with clear milestones, competencies, and qualification checkpoints for technicians and new hires.
Build ongoing development pathways that reinforce, advance, and re-qualify skills beyond initial onboarding.
Develop lesson plans, presentations, demonstrations, job aids, exercises, knowledge checks, and curricula grounded in adult-learning and instructional-design principles.
Use tools such as an LMS, video, interactive e-learning, and digital job aids to create scalable and repeatable courses.
Define and track training-effectiveness metrics, including time-to-productivity, competency attainment, qualification pass rates, and on-floor performance; analyze results to identify trends and gaps.
Provide data-driven input to engineering, manufacturing, and Quality to improve processes, documentation, and tooling for faster, more reliable onboarding.
Partner with technicians, engineers, Quality, and subject-matter experts to learn the composites manufacturing lifecycle; spend time on the floor reinforcing training, maintaining qualification records, and keeping materials current as processes change.