Lead Manufacturing Engineer: Scale Production & Automation

WindBorne Systems; California; Vor Ort; USD 130.000 - 180.000; Vollzeit

Benefits dieser Stelle

401(k)

Health, Dental, and Vision insurance 100% covered

Unlimited PTO

Incentive Stock Option Plan

Office food and beverages

Zusammenfassung

Convectivecapital is hiring a Senior Manufacturing Engineer in Redwood Shores, CA. This pivotal role requires ownership of manufacturing processes as the first engineer in the company, aiming to enhance production reliability and speed. You will be responsible for establishing manufacturing standards and directing a team in the future.

With a competitive salary between $130k and $180k, the position focuses on collaboration with design engineers and taking charge of test protocol development, among other crucial engineering tasks. Benefits include comprehensive health insurance and unlimited PTO.

Qualifikationen

• 5+ years in manufacturing engineering with expertise in NPI and assembly.
• Comfortable stepping into a leadership role, with potential to build a team.
• Hands-on skills in designing test fixtures and protocols.

Aufgaben

• Own manufacturing engineering for parts transitioning from the design team.
• Build clean design-to-manufacturing handoffs using sound judgment.
• Develop end-to-end test fixtures and protocols to verify quality.

Kenntnisse

Engineering experience

NPI and assembly

Leadership potential

Functional test fixture design

Mechanical and pneumatic design

Comfort with ambiguity

Sound judgment

Jobbeschreibung

Senior Manufacturing Engineer

apply now

WindBorne is an atypical hardware company: we sell the data our balloons produce, not the balloons. Our customer is our own operations team, which puts engineering and the field about as close together as they can get. We push design changes to flying hardware roughly once a week while scaling production at the same time.

Today every part of that loop is owned by full-stack engineers who each design a part, own its tooling, and tweak it based on field performance. That has worked so far, but manufacturing throughput and tooling maintenance have grown into a full-time load that can no longer share a desk with design iteration. This role exists to take that load.

About the Team

Manufacturing and Production turns engineering designs into repeatable, high-quality production. We build mechatronic hardware assemblies — PCBA, electronic sensors, ballast, and an adjustable inflatable balloon.

Boards arrive populated from our suppliers. On our floor, we assemble the PCBAs into the electronics assembly, test it, and then build up the mechanical hardware, ballast, and balloon around it. The work is manual to semi-automated, and it has to hold together while the designs underneath it keep changing.

We are running about 1,000 units a month and doubling roughly every six months. Most hardware teams get design lock before volume. We don't, and the manufacturing system has to work anyway.

Your Charter

Own manufacturing engineering for parts as they come off the design team.

You will take on process, tooling, and production responsibility so design engineers can stay on design and bring-up. You will decide which parts of a design are stable enough to tool up and document, and which need to stay flexible — and you will be able to explain why. Above all, you will design the processes that turn a weekly-changing design into a build that runs the same way every time.

This is a hands-on individual contributor role reporting to the Head of Manufacturing.

Snapshot of the balloon constellation ONMARCH 31, 2026

Responsibilities

Key Outcomes

• Production processes that are designed, documented, and stable enough for the floor to run without the design engineer standing next to them
• DFM feedback delivered early and often, so manufacturability is settled before a design hardens — and design changes that reach the floor without breaking it
• Clean design-to-manufacturing handoffs, including for parts not yet at full design lock, with judgment applied to what gets systematized and what stays flexible
• Functional, end-to-end test fixtures and protocols that catch defects at the electronics assembly stage rather than at final build
• Jigs, fixtures, and assembly aids that raise throughput and repeatability across electronics integration and mechanical assembly
• Equipment and workstations owned from first request through ramp — specification, sourcing, vendor buy-off, installation, and handoff to production
• Station layout, line balance, and capacity modeled ahead of demand, so the floor is ready for the next doubling before it arrives
• A manufacturing backbone built from the ground up — work instructions, revision and change practices, production documentation — extending the lightweight in-house system already in place
• Cycle time and first-pass yield that hold as volume doubles

Key Competencies

• Process design first: you can take a new or changing assembly and define the sequence, stations, tooling, and checks that make it repeatable
• Deep DFM instinct — you spot the tolerance, fastener, connector, or sequence problem in a design review, and you can make the case for the change in terms the design engineer accepts
• Hands-on functional test fixture and test protocol design
• Mechanical and pneumatic fixturing and assembly-aid design
• Structured problem solving — you get to root cause with data from the line rather than opinion, and your fix holds
• Comfort reading process data: cycle time, yield, defect Pareto, and what they say about where to spend the next week
• Comfort with ambiguity — you have built repeatable production around designs that were still changing, and you apply context instead of imposing a rigid system
• Sound judgment and the ability to explain the “why” behind a process decision to design engineers and to the floor
• An instinct for the factory floor: you solve problems next to the people building the product

Skills and Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Manufacturing, Mechatronics, or a related engineering field
• 3+ years in manufacturing engineering, with a track record of launching assembly line processes, equipment, and/or new products
• Demonstrated process development experience — processes you designed, documented, and put into production
• Strong DFM fundamentals, applied in direct partnership with design engineering
• Experience taking electromechanical or mechatronic products from prototype into production, including electronics assembly and functional test
• Experience designing functional test fixtures and test protocols
• Proficiency in CAD for fixture, tooling, and workstation design
• Able to work on-site in Redwood Shores

Bonus if you:

• Have run electronics assembly integration and in-line functional test
• Have worked in high-mix, rapid-iteration environments where the design was still moving
• Know standard process documentation practice — PFMEA, control plans, DOE, SPC
• Are strong on GD&T and tolerance analysis for mechanical parts
• Have specified, sourced, and bought off production equipment with outside vendors
• Have managed suppliers and incoming quality for outsourced parts (3D-printed, laser-cut, PCB/PCBA)
• Have stood up quality, yield, inspection, or documentation systems from scratch
• Have applied Lean or structured continuous improvement to a real line

Benefits

• 401(k)
• Health, Dental, and Vision insurance 100% covered
• Unlimited PTO
• Incentive Stock Option Plan
• Office food and beverages (minimum 2x catered lunches & dinners a week)

Salary

$120k-$200k** We are considering a range of backgrounds and experience levels for this position and adjust our offers accordingly to be competitive with market rates.

Location

1600 Bridge Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA. In person required.

What our hardware looks like

WindBorne Systems is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. To request an accommodation in the application process, email [e-mail]

WindBorne Systems is based in Redwood Shores, California. Our technology is invented, designed, and manufactured in the USA.

© 2026 by WindBorne Systems

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