PCBA Process Engineer—On-the-Floor Optimizer

Rocket-Ems; Carson City (NV); On-site; USD 75,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) with company match

Medical, dental, vision, and life ins.

Paid time off

Job summary

Rocket EMS in Carson City, NV is seeking a Process Engineer to develop, optimize, and sustain PCBA production processes across SMT, through-hole, soldering, cleaning, coating, and mechanical assembly.

This hands-on role spends much of the day on the production floor, collaborating with operators, leads, technicians, and supervisors to resolve process issues and enhance assembly methods for stable parameters and clear work instructions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree preferred; equivalent hands-on electronics manufacturing experience considered.
• 3+ years of process/manufacturing engineering in PCBA or electronics manufacturing.
• Hands-on experience developing and troubleshooting SMT, through-hole, soldering, cleaning, coating, or mechanical assembly.
• Experience establishing equipment settings, qualifying processes, and resolving recurring defects.
• Experience creating work instructions and training production personnel.
• Knowledge of J-STD-001 and IPC-A-610 Class 2/3 requirements as applicable.
• Experience with conformal coating materials, application methods, cleanliness, and curing preferred.
• Experience in high-reliability electronics manufacturing (aerospace/defense) preferred.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary engineering resource for daily production process issues and assembly problems.
• Develop, qualify, and sustain processes for solder paste printing, placement, reflow, wave soldering, cleaning, coating, and mechanical assembly.
• Establish and maintain equipment programs, soldering profiles, cleaning parameters, coating settings, and other process limits.
• Troubleshoot defects such as solder bridging, misalignment, contamination, and coating adhesion.
• Create and maintain MPIs, setup instructions, visual aids, and standard work.
• Review drawings, BOMs, engineering changes, and customer requirements for workstation implementation.
• Conduct controlled process trials, document results, and implement approved changes.
• Develop and qualify tooling and assembly aids (stencils, pallets, fixtures).
• Analyze yield, defects, scrap, cycle times, and downtime to verify improvements.
• Lead root cause investigations with Quality/Test Engineering; PFMEA and control plans.
• Support NPI/first-article builds; prepare equipment and document lessons learned.
• Train operators and technicians on assembly methods and process controls.
• Improve workstation layout and line balance to reduce variation and wasted motion.
• Coordinate with Maintenance and vendors to distinguish process issues from equipment faults.
• Escalate design limitations and changes to Manufacturing Engineering.
• Support safety, ESD, chemical handling, environmental, and customer requirements audits.

Skills

Troubleshooting

Root cause analysis

SPC

DOE

PFMEA

Lean manufacturing

Interpret drawings

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in related field

Equivalent hands-on electronics manufacturing experience

Tools

ERP/MES systems

SPC tooling

Inspection data systems

Job description

Rocket EMS in Carson City, NV is seeking a Process Engineer to develop, optimize, and sustain PCBA production processes across SMT, through-hole, soldering, cleaning, coating, and mechanical assembly.

This hands-on role spends much of the day on the production floor, collaborating with operators, leads, technicians, and supervisors to resolve process issues and enhance assembly methods for stable parameters and clear work instructions.