Manufacturing Engineer

Uncover; Detroit (MI); On-site; USD 75,000 - 115,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health insurance

Job summary

GroundedGrounded, a Detroit-based startup, is hiring a Manufacturing Engineer to own the connection between engineering and the production floor. You will translate CAD into actionable work instructions and own the end-to-end build schedule to ensure on-time ship dates.

This is an execution role, not a design position. You will be on the shop floor daily, driving throughput, removing blockers, and coordinating between technicians and engineers to keep momentum.

Qualifications

• 3+ years in manufacturing, production, or process engineering in environments that physically build things.
• You can navigate complex vehicle assemblies and produce clear 2D drawings and work instructions from CAD.
• Ability to chase open items to closure and push for results on a fast-paced schedule.
• Demonstrated capability to communicate clearly with technicians and engineers alike and to coordinate across teams.

Responsibilities

• Be the first call for every technician question on the floor and provide on-the-spot answers or route engineering guidance.
• Create and maintain work instruction drawings from CAD for every assembly on every vehicle and keep them current as designs change.
• Own all build schedules end to end: sequence work, set daily targets, track progress, and hold teams accountable to dates.
• Run the daily drumbeat of the floor: build status reviews, identify problems early, escalate where needed and unblock blockers.
• Serve as the two-way channel between engineering and manufacturing to feed issues back into design and drive fixes to closure.
• Walk the floor constantly, working directly with vehicles and technicians rather than at a desk.
• Improve build processes through better documentation standards, sequences, and handoffs from engineering to production.

Skills

Relentless follow-through

Strong communicator

High motor

Startup fit

Tools

Siemens NX

SolidWorks

CATIA

Job description

Detroit, MI (in-person)

About GroundedGrounded is a 25-person Detroit-based startup building modular electric platforms for specialty vehicles. We take cab chassis from OEMs like Ford and Harbinger and build configurable vehicle systems on top, serving mobile healthcare, RVs, command centers, food and beverage, pet care, and more. Our customers include Colgate, Nokia, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and Portland PD. We've raised ~$5M in VC funding and are shipping vehicles in market today.

We also build our own software: a mobile app, fleet dashboard, and onboard computer system that lets customers monitor and control vehicle systems remotely. We design, fabricate, and assemble everything in-house at our facility in Corktown.

The Role

We're hiring a Manufacturing Engineer to own the connection between engineering and the production floor. Every vehicle we build runs through this role: you are the person our technicians come to with every question about what they're building, you turn engineering CAD into the work instruction drawings the floor builds from, and you own every build schedule in the shop.

Let's be direct about what this job is, because it matters. This is not a design engineering role, and it's not a quiet back-office process role either. It is execution: coordinating people, answering questions in real time, producing build documentation, and driving schedules — relentlessly. You'll be in CAD every day, but to make work instructions, not new designs. If you want to spend your days heads-down modeling parts, this is the wrong job. If you want to be the person the entire factory runs through — the one who knows the state of every build, keeps every technician unblocked, and makes ship dates real — this is the job.

One more thing we won't sugarcoat: this role is intense. The build schedule is the heartbeat of the company, and you own it. That means pushing the pace every single day — chasing open items, holding people to commitments, escalating slips the hour they happen, and never letting "we'll get to it" stand. We need a driver. The right person reads that and gets excited.

What you'd actually do

• Be the first call for every technician question on the floor — what part goes where, what the drawing means, what to do when reality doesn't match CAD. You answer on the spot or run the answer down from engineering fast
• Create and maintain work instruction drawings from engineering CAD (Siemens NX) for every assembly on every vehicle, and keep them current as designs change
• Own all build schedules end to end: sequence the work, set daily targets, track progress against them, and hold everyone — technicians and engineers alike — accountable to dates
• Run the daily drumbeat of the floor: build status reviews, catching problems before they become delays, escalating and unblocking the moment something slips
• Be the two-way channel between engineering and manufacturing — feed manufacturability problems and floor feedback into design, and drive engineering fixes to closure instead of letting them sit
• Walk the floor constantly. This job is done standing next to the vehicles, not at a desk
• Improve how we build: better documentation standards, better build sequences, better handoffs from engineering to the floor

What we're looking for

• 3+ years in manufacturing, production, or process engineering in an environment that physically builds things — automotive, RV, commercial vehicles, aerospace, or industrial equipment
• Strong, current CAD fluency (NX preferred; SolidWorks/CATIA with willingness to learn NX works) — you can navigate complex vehicle assemblies and produce clear 2D drawings and work instructions from them
• Relentless follow-through. You chase every open item to closure, you're comfortable applying pressure and being direct with people every day, and you don't need anyone to tell you to do it
• High motor. You thrive under sustained intensity and a schedule that never stops mattering — and you find that energizing, not draining
• Strong communicator in both directions: you can talk shop with technicians and talk engineering with engineers, and both trust you
• Genuinely organized: you can hold the state of a dozen concurrent builds in your head and in a schedule that everyone believes
• Startup fit: comfortable with ambiguity, zero bureaucracy, and owning outcomes rather than tasks

Nice-to-haves

• Vehicle upfitting, RV, or specialty vehicle manufacturing experience
• Experience creating work instructions or shop-floor documentation systems from scratch
• Hands-on trade skills (electrical, plumbing, carpentry, fabrication) — enough to earn the floor's respect quickly
• Experience with production scheduling or MES tools
• Lean manufacturing / continuous improvement background

Compensation

• Competitive base salary + meaningful equity in Grounded + comprehensive health insurance

Why this role is different

Most manufacturing engineering jobs give you a slice of a process someone else designed. This one gives you the whole factory's tempo. You'll know every vehicle in the shop, every technician will run their questions through you, and every ship date will be one you drove. It's one of the highest-leverage seats in the company — when you're good, the entire building moves faster — and you'll do it working directly with the leadership team in a shop where the vehicles you pushed out the door are on the road with real customers weeks later.