Metrology Technician

PAVE Space; Villeneuve (VD); On-site; CHF 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

PAVE Space is building a new incoming inspection function in Villeneuve (VD). You will define the lab, specify equipment, and establish routines and standards on-site to ensure every part is verified before it reaches the floor.

You will perform hands-on CMM programming, drive metrology strategy, and ensure ISO 17025 traceability. Close collaboration with Workshop, Procurement, and Manufacturing is required for a rigorous, early-stage lab supporting a bold space program.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of metrology or incoming inspection engineering in aerospace, turbomachinery, medical, or another precision industry.
• Hands-on CMM programming and operation (Zeiss, Mitutoyo, Hexagon, or equivalent).
• Strong GD&T fluency, including translating drawing requirements into measurement strategy.
• Working knowledge of ISO 17025 calibration discipline and traceability chains.
• Experience with optical metrology, surface roughness, and form measurement.
• Comfortable specifying and commissioning inspection equipment from scratch.
• Track record handling supplier non-conformance, documenting, escalating, and seeing it through to resolution.
• English, fluently; French strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Incoming inspection of supplier hardware, castings, forgings, machined parts, AM parts from external bureaus, fluid components, electronics
• Selection and commissioning of the shop's inspection equipment: CMM, optical, surface roughness, profilometry, hardness
• The calibration register and traceability chain, defensible to ISO 17025 standards
• Supplier non-conformance: document, escalation, manage the return and rework loop with Procurement and the Quality / PA Lead
• Inspection tooling for the shop floor: gauges, fixtures, and reference standards
• Spot-check support for in-house machined and printed parts when the team needs an independent measurement
• The dimensional evidence chain that supports flight qualification dossiers

Skills

GD&T fluency

Non-conformance handling

Parts inspection mindset

Supplier communication

Tools

Zeiss CMM

Mitutoyo CMM

Hexagon CMM

Job description

Metrology Technician

Every part that comes in the door. You're the last check before it goes to the floor.

PAVE Space is building LYOBA, a heavy kick stage moving over 4-ton payloads from LEO to high-energy orbits in under 24 hours. Engine parts, structural castings, printed thrust chambers from external bureaus, fluid components, electronics, every one of them passes through your hands before it touches a vehicle. That's the job.

So, why now?

Engine and structural hardware is starting to land from suppliers, the workshop is being built, and the inspection equipment that will verify everything coming through the door needs to be specified now. The incoming inspection function doesn't exist yet. You'll define it, on a timeline measured in weeks, not quarters.

What you'll own

• Incoming inspection of supplier hardware, castings, forgings, machined parts, AM parts from external bureaus, fluid components, electronics
• Selection and commissioning of the shop's inspection equipment: CMM, optical, surface roughness, profilometry, hardness
• The calibration register and traceability chain, defensible to ISO 17025 standards
• Supplier non-conformance: document, escalation, manage the return and rework loop with Procurement and the Quality / PA Lead
• Inspection tooling for the shop floor: what gauges, fixtures, and reference standards belong at each station
• Spot-check support for in-house machined and printed parts when the team needs an independent measurement
• The dimensional evidence chain that supports flight qualification dossiers

What we need

• 5+ years of metrology or incoming inspection engineering in aerospace, turbomachinery, medical, or another precision industry
• Hands-on CMM programming and operation (Zeiss, Mitutoyo, Hexagon, or equivalent)
• Strong GD&T fluency, including translating drawing requirements into measurement strategy
• Working knowledge of ISO 17025 calibration discipline and traceability chains
• Experience with optical metrology, surface roughness, and form measurement
• Comfortable specifying and commissioning inspection equipment from scratch
• Track record handling supplier non-conformance, documenting, escalating, and seeing it through to resolution
• English, fluently; French strongly preferred

Nice to have: metrology of printed parts (regen channels, internal features, X-ray CT); rocket engine or turbomachinery hardware verification; experience standing up an incoming inspection function rather than inheriting one.

You'll fit right in if

• You'd rather catch a bad part at the door than at integration.
• You see the inspection equipment as a system; calibrated, traceable, and only as good as the discipline behind it.
• You take pride in non-conformances that get resolved cleanly, not in finding things to reject.
• You're comfortable telling a supplier their part is out of spec and standing behind the measurement when they push back.
• You see your work as the reason the team upstream of you can trust what they're building with.

The job is fully on-site in Villeneuve (VD), with our test site in Chavalon twenty minutes away. The incoming inspection function is being built from scratch; you'll be specifying the equipment, defining the routines, and setting the standards. You'll report to the Quality / PA Lead and work closely with the Workshop, Procurement, and the Manufacturing team. This is hard and early. If you want a mature metrology lab with a calibrated equipment fleet, this is the wrong seat. If you want to build that lab for the most ambitious space program in Switzerland, it's the right one.

We are building to ship, grounded on real hardware, real funding, real milestones. Apply to contribute, surrounded by people as sharp as you are. And if this isn't you but you know that person.