Senior Manufacturing Engineer I - Avionics & Test Verified today

About Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems that keep the world connected, protected, and expand humanity's reach to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

The Role

This Senior Manufacturing Engineer I position centers on testing and avionics, involving hands-on debugging of electro-mechanical and avionics systems, optimizing manufacturing processes, and supporting product design for manufacturability. You will troubleshoot production issues, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and drive process improvements.

What You'll Do

• Prepare feasibility studies and conduct manufacturing technology research and development projects
• Partner with Design Engineering teams to incorporate Design for Manufacture into products to ensure robustness and manufacturability at scale
• Engineer and deliver factory systems: design, procure, install, and validate assembly, test and verification processes
• Support Development builds to uncover early learnings and resolve issues to accelerate the production ramp up
• Take engineering ownership of production lines to remove blockers, improve yield and increase build efficiency
• Triage and diagnose failures, conduct deep technical investigations and determine the right path forward including risk mitigation actions and root cause resolution
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to resolve complex issues
• Drive process improvements across manufacturing, test and integration
• Contribute to change management, assessing risk and impact of design or process changes
• Support business system and process improvements to drive increased organizational effectiveness and efficiency

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Computer Engineering, or similar
• 5 or more years of technical experience in a Manufacturing, Production, or Process Engineering environment
• Hands-on experience proactively identifying and solving systemic multifaceted problems in complex manufacturing systems
• Ability to effectively deliver on multiple complex multifaceted assignments simultaneously with autonomy
• Ability to effectively coach and mentor others to raise the bar across multiple teams
• Detailed technical knowledge in complex manufacturing processes
• Hands-on technical experience debugging complex electro-mechanical systems in a manufacturing environment
• Significant experience with data acquisition and analyses

Nice to Have

• Working experience with environmental acceptance and production acceptance testing, such as vibration, shock, thermal, and vacuum
• Understanding of instrumentation, interfaces, and sensors including power supplies, oscilloscopes, serial devices, switch topologies, accelerometers, thermocouples, RTDs, and 4-20mA sensors
• Experience with designing, implementing, and supporting a production line and/or build area
• Experience transitioning products from design to production as part of a cross-functional team in a fast-paced, iterative design environment
• Demonstrated experience with DFMEA, PFMEA methodologies, Fault Tree Analysis, Pareto analysis, root cause and corrective action

Compensation

• Base Salary: $115,000 to $158,000 USD
• Total Compensation (base and equity): $135,000 to $194,000 USD
• Company stock as part of your total compensation package
• Industry-leading Employee Stock Purchase Program with 15% discount
• Top-tier medical plans (HMO, PPO, zero cost HDHP with HSA company contribution)
• Dental and vision coverage
• Paid vacation and sick time, 11 paid holidays
• Flexible spending and dependent care accounts
• Paid parental leave
• Disability and life insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with company match
• Subsidized EV charging
• Onsite fitness centers (where available)
• Discounted gym memberships
• Complimentary snacks and beverages

Working Conditions

This position may require prolonged periods of sitting, standing, walking, computer work, and occasional exposure to moderate levels of noise, dust, and fumes in production areas.

Eligibility

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), candidates must be a U.S. citizen, lawful U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State and/or the U.S. Department of Commerce.