Additive Manufacturing Manager

Avance Consulting; Maryland; Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Avance Consulting in Maryland is seeking an experienced additive manufacturing specialist to stand up an in-house metal L-PBF cell, align processes with design engineers, and drive cost, weight, and time reductions across production builds.

You will own the printing relationship with our manufacturing partner, develop and approve print parameters, and ensure consistency across multi-unit runs from prototype to production.

Qualifications

• BS in Mechanical, Materials or Manufacturing Engineering or similar.
• 5+ years hands-on with metal L-PBF in production or advanced R&D.
• Design for additive in practice with proven yield or cost improvements.
• Build preparation: orientation, nesting, supports and parameters.
• Post-print processing and quality controls including CT and tests.
• Experience managing external manufacturers to spec and driving process improvements.

Responsibilities

• Stand up the lab and commission the L-PBF printer cell with safety and powder handling.
• Write operating procedures for printing, powder management and post-print work.
• Collaborate with thermal engineers to ensure printable designs and manufacturability.
• Own the printing relationship with the manufacturing partner from first articles to production runs.
• Maintain process consistency across multi-unit orders and oversee post-print steps.
• Drive cost, yield and print time by optimizing geometry, orientation and parameters.

Skills

Metal AM experience

Design for additive

Post-processing

Root cause analysis

Vendor management

Process qualification

Education

BS in Mechanical, Materials or Manufacturing Engineering

Tools

L-PBF printers

CT scanning equipment

Job description

The company prints heat exchangers for data center cooling, each one a single piece of metal. They are not stamped or brazed parts. They are large and thin-walled, full of internal channels, and they push what laser powder bed fusion can reliably produce.

You own how they get printed. That runs from the first R&D test coupon to a finished, inspected unit ready to leave our manufacturing partner's dock (ex-works). Orientation, supports, nesting, parameters, powder and the post-print sequence are all yours. Shipping and delivery are handled by others.

The work happens in two places. In our new lab near BWI, you and the operations team stand up an in-house metal L-PBF cell and use it to prove out new designs. With our overseas manufacturing partner, you carry those designs into production and keep driving print time, cost and yield in the right direction.

You are not the thermal engineer. Our engineers design the heat transfer. You make their designs printable, then make them cheaper, lighter and faster to print, and you lead the operational work to get there. This is not a supplier management job.

What You'll Do

Stand up the lab

• With the operations team, commission our L-PBF printer cell: installation, acceptance, powder handling, inert gas and safety.
• Write the operating procedures for printing, powder management and post-print work.
• Work hands-on at the machine alongside our lab technician, who handles daily operation and machining.
• Run test coupons and prototype builds in-house so new designs are proven before they reach production.

Design for additive

• Work side by side with our thermal engineers to make each design printable: wall and channel limits, overhangs, supports, powder removal from internal channels, distortion and residual stress.
• Lead the operational push on yield, lightweighting and print time. Know which change in geometry, orientation or parameters buys the most.
• Turn every build into something engineering can use: what failed, why, and what the design rule should be.

Own the partner, R&D to ex-works

• Be the technical owner of our printing relationship with our manufacturing partner: parameter approval, test coupon campaigns, first articles and production runs.
• Assemble the build authorization package before any build starts: final CAD, material specs, post-print sequence and acceptance criteria, passed through an internal review gate.
• Hold process consistency across multi-unit orders: same parameters, same powder lot or documented requalification, same orientation, and test coupons on every plate.
• Oversee the post-print chain: depowdering, plate and support removal, heat treatment, CT scanning, leak and pressure testing, and cleaning. Approve the documentation that ships with every unit.
• Take nonconformances to root cause and corrective action. Reject builds that miss spec.

Drive cost, yield and print time

• Know the cost stack of a printed part: machine hours, powder, gas, post-processing, inspection and scrap. Find the levers and pull them.
• Track and report yield, first-pass rate, print time per unit, cost per unit and nonconformance rate.
• Bring the technical case to pricing conversations with our partner.
• Down the road, help shape company own production facility with what you learn.

What You Bring

Required

• BS in Mechanical, Materials or Manufacturing Engineering, or similar.
• 5+ years hands‑on with metal L-PBF in production or advanced R&D, on large-format, multi‑laser machines (build envelopes of roughly 400 mm and up). Polymer, binder jet and small‑format experience does not count toward this.
• Design for additive in practice. You have changed a design to make it print, and you can show what it bought in yield, weight, time or cost.
• Build preparation and parameter work: orientation, support strategy, nesting, laser assignment, and parameter development or tuning.
• Post‑print and quality: stress relief and heat treatment, powder removal from internal channels, CT and leak testing, NCRs and root cause.
• Experience holding an outside manufacturer or service bureau to spec.
• Comfort building process where none exists yet.

Nice to have

• Stainless steel or nickel alloys. Thin‑wall, internal‑channel parts such as heat exchangers, cold plates, manifolds or injectors.
• Commissioning a metal AM cell: install, powder handling, inert gas and safety.
• Build simulation for distortion and supports.
• Aerospace, defense, energy or other high‑consequence metal parts.

Where You Work

• On site at our lab near BWI, 2 to 3 days a week. Anywhere within commuting range, roughly Philadelphia to Arlington, VA, works. Further than that does not.
• Our partner is overseas. Expect some early or late calls, and one or two international trips a year.

Why this company

• Join as an early hire and own real outcomes from day one.
• Get meaningful early-stage equity and the chance to build value over years, not quarters.
• Work on a hard, high‑leverage problem at the intersection of physics, manufacturing and AI infrastructure.
• Be part of a team that values craft, speed with rigor, and straightforward feedback.