Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Expert

Confidential; United States; Remote; USD 110,000 - 255,000; Full time

Job summary

Zekai is seeking a Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Expert for a fully remote contractor role. You will design challenging technical problems from your domain, define what constitutes a correct solution, and ensure problems are unambiguous and well-founded.

You’ll collaborate with cross-functional teams, review others’ problems for technical accuracy, and contribute to advancing quality assessment in manufacturing, process design, automation, and operations modeling.

Qualifications

• Master’s or PhD in manufacturing, industrial, or mechanical engineering.
• Principal, staff, or fellow-level experience at a major manufacturing organization, or a faculty appointment.
• Deep technical depth in at least one subdomain, with hands-on ownership of the work.
• Able to explain why an answer is correct clearly so that another engineer could verify it.
• Publications, patents, or a record of technical leadership is a strong plus.
• AI or LLM evaluation experience is a plus, but not required.

Responsibilities

• Design difficult technical problems from your own area — process design, production systems, quality engineering, automation, supply chain and operations modeling — with realistic constraints and supporting data.
• Provide the correct solution and walk through the reasoning that gets there.
• Define objective criteria for correctness, so another expert reviewing the work would reach the same verdict.
• Review problems built by other contributors for technical accuracy and soundness of method.
• Flag problems that turn out to be ambiguous or ungradable rather than submitting them.

Education

Master’s or PhD in manufacturing, industrial, or mechanical engineering

Job description

Role Title: Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Expert

Role Type: Contractor

Location: Remote

Opportunity Snapshot

Pay: $80- $185/hour

Commitment: Flexible — fits alongside your current role

Location: Fully remote

You’ll need: Master’s or PhD in manufacturing, industrial, or mechanical engineering, plus principal‑level industry experience or a faculty appointment

Your tasks: Build challenging technical problems from your own domain and define what makes an answer correct

You’ll be working on

The problems where the textbook answer isn’t enough, where the right approach depends on reading the constraints correctly, where a plausible‑looking solution is quietly wrong. You’ll build those problems, provide the correct analysis, and define what separates a right answer from one that only looks right.

What you’ll do

• Design difficult technical problems from your own area — process design, production systems, quality engineering, automation, supply chain and operations modeling — with realistic constraints and supporting data.
• Provide the correct solution and walk through the reasoning that gets there.
• Define objective criteria for correctness, so another expert reviewing the work would reach the same verdict.
• Review problems built by other contributors for technical accuracy and soundness of method.
• Flag problems that turn out to be ambiguous or ungradable rather than submitting them.

What we’re looking for

• Master’s or PhD in manufacturing, industrial, mechanical engineering, or a closely related field.
• Principal, staff, or fellow‑level experience at a major manufacturing organization, or a faculty appointment at a leading university.
• Deep technical depth in at least one subdomain, with hands‑on ownership of the work.
• Able to explain why an answer is correct clearly enough that another engineer could verify it.
• Publications, patents, or a record of technical leadership is a strong plus.
• AI or LLM evaluation experience is a plus, but not required.

This is a 100% remote contract role, open to applicants worldwide in the countries the employer accepts.