Manufacturing Engineer IV, Production Line Stand-Up
Company: Defense-technology company (name shared under NDA)
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, on-site
Type: Full-time
Compensation: $120,000 to $150,000
Eligibility: U.S. citizenship required
Confidential Search · Defense Technology
Confidential search. The hiring company's identity is shared with candidates under NDA.
About the Client
A founder-led defense technology company building deployable position, navigation, and timing (PNT) hardware for the U.S. Army. The company is moving three product lines out of prototype and onto a production floor of its own in Las Vegas, with engineering based in Northern Virginia. This is a place where the work you own is the work that ships: a small team, real hardware, and fielding timelines that do not move.
About the Role
You design and stand up the company's production line in Las Vegas: the floor, the tooling, the fixtures, the test equipment, and every assembly procedure that runs on it.
Right now the production knowledge for these products lives with a partner. By the end of this fiscal year it lives in your documentation, on your line, executed by the company's own technicians. That transfer is the job.
Responsibilities
- Line design. Detailed production line layout and workflow for the Las Vegas facility: workstation configurations, materials handling, ESD protection, component storage and inventory management, and production floor safety for electronics assembly at the volumes required to hit full-rate production targets.
- Infrastructure. Design, procurement, installation, and validation of all production line infrastructure, including tooling, fixtures, test equipment, and assembly workstation configurations for both LRIP and full-rate production.
- Process documentation. Author and control every assembly procedure, software flashing protocol, inspection criterion, and quality control checkpoint across the three primary product lines.
- Knowledge capture. Embed with the board assembly partner during Phase 1 delivery to capture, refine, and formalize the assembly process knowledge the company needs to execute production independently next year. This is the highest-leverage work in the role.
- Pilot production. Lead first-article builds under controlled conditions for each product line, proving the documented procedures produce conforming units and driving process improvements before LRIP quantities begin.
- Sensor fusion tooling. Establish process documentation and tooling specifications for the navigation sensor fusion line, including modular assembly procedures for each sensor module variant, so the capability is fully validated before any delivery quantity is committed.
Requirements
Must-Haves
- 10 to 20 years of manufacturing or hardware engineering experience in electronics production. A master's degree may be required to meet the contract labor category.
- You have stood up a line, not just improved one: layout, tooling specification, fixture design, workstation build-out, and the validation that proves it works.
- Deep electronics assembly process knowledge, covering SMT and through-hole, IPC-A-610 workmanship standards, ESD control, conformal coating, and functional test.
- Proven work instruction authorship. Your procedures are the ones a new technician can actually follow.
- First-article inspection and process validation experience, including FAI, pilot builds, and process capability.
- Willingness to work shoulder-to-shoulder with a partner's manufacturing team to extract process knowledge and bring it home.
- U.S. citizenship, and the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.
Nice-to-Haves
- Prototype-to-production transition experience in a defense or aerospace environment.
- Test equipment and test fixture development, including automated functional test.
- Ruggedized or MIL-STD-qualified hardware production.
- AS9100 or ISO 9001 process environments, or Six Sigma or lean manufacturing credentials.
Process
- This is a confidential search. An NDA is required before the company's identity and full role details are shared. We screen for interest at a high level first, then read candidates in once an NDA is in place.
This position supports U.S. Government work subject to export control regulations. Applicants must be U.S. persons. The hiring company is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.