Engineering Lead: Plant Equipment & Rapid Prototyping

American Advanced Materials; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity compensation

Medical, vision and dental coverage

Flexible PTO

Job summary

American Advanced Materials seeks a hands-on engineering leader to own design, fabrication, and integration of custom and purchased equipment across our titanium and zirconium facilities. You’ll decide build vs.

buy, ensure manufacturability, and drive rapid prototyping of scalable hardware for a first-of-its-kind plant. Responsibilities include leading design of Kroll reactors, vacuum distillation units, collaborating with vendors, and overseeing fabrication, testing, and installation through

Qualifications

• Proven success in solving engineering challenges requiring build vs buy decisions.
• Experience designing, building, and testing fluid-handling systems under challenging conditions.
• Proven leadership of engineering teams in equipment/hardware manufacture.
• Expertise in materials selection, high-performance alloys, corrosion resistance.
• Familiarity with advanced manufacturing techniques, CNC machining, and welding of exotic alloys.
• Experience with DFM, rapid prototyping, and supplier collaboration for custom parts.
• Experience with pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy or chemical/oil & gas systems is a plus.
• Experience with very large-scale components (e.g., tall distillation columns, large tanks) is a plus
• Experience with reactive metals is a plus

Responsibilities

• Make buy vs. build decisions in collaboration with process & facilities engineering.
• Lead design and development of all custom process hardware such as reactors and distillation units.
• Evaluate equipment technologies with vendors and integrate selected systems.
• Conduct design-for-manufacturing (DFM) reviews and optimize for lead time and cost.
• Oversee fabrication and assembly of hardware to meet specs and timelines.
• Lead prototyping and testing to iterate quickly for performance and reliability.
• Develop and execute hardware validation test plans (thermal, mechanical, chemical).
• Ensure hardware integrates smoothly into plant layout and process flow.
• Oversee installation, commissioning, and troubleshooting during pilot and production phases.
• Design modular, scalable hardware for rapid replication as the facility expands
• Identify opportunities to reduce costs and improve hardware performance

Skills

Leadership

DFM

Prototyping

Project management

Education

Advanced engineering degree

Tools

CNC machining

Welding

Cryogenic systems

Job description

American Advanced Materials seeks a hands-on engineering leader to own design, fabrication, and integration of custom and purchased equipment across our titanium and zirconium facilities. You’ll decide build vs.

buy, ensure manufacturability, and drive rapid prototyping of scalable hardware for a first-of-its-kind plant. Responsibilities include leading design of Kroll reactors, vacuum distillation units, collaborating with vendors, and overseeing fabrication, testing, and installation through