Senior Airframe Manufacturing Engineer - Composites

Voiceflow; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vis

401(k) program with stock options

Flexible time-off policy

Job summary

Astro Mechanica in San Francisco is hiring to stand up its airframe manufacturing operation from the ground up. You will shape facilities, workflows, tooling, and processes while coordinating with engineering, quality, and production to translate designs into scalable, producible hardware.

This hands-on leadership role requires deep composite manufacturing expertise, supplier collaboration, and rigorous first article inspections to ensure dimensional and quality standards across early builds.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in high variability composite manufacturing, including prototyping and airframe fabrication.
• Experience with composite materials and processes (prepreg layup, wet layup, bonding, curing, trimming, repair, drilling and fastening).
• Experience developing manufacturing processes for complex composite layups and/or aerostructure assemblies from the ground up.
• Experience with metallic airframe components and composite-to-metal interfaces.
• Experience building or scaling manufacturing operations, labs, or shops in a development or flight hardware environment.
• Experience mentoring and partnering with technicians.
• Experience working directly from engineering drawings, ply books, CAD models, and evolving build definitions.
• Strong project management skills.
• Proficiency in NX or similar CAD system.
• Demonstrated experience designing and developing composite tools and/or assembly fixtures.
• Strong understanding of GD&T.
• Experience providing DFM feedback.
• Experience with quality inspection methods (dimensional, NDI, in-process).
• Familiarity with destructive and non-destructive test methods common to composites manufacturing.

Responsibilities

• Stand up airframe manufacturing from scratch, defining facilities, workflows, tooling, equipment, and consumables for rapid and scalable implementation.
• Work directly with airframe engineering and design teams to translate designs into manufacturing plans.
• Support layup, bonding, curing, trimming, assembly, and rework to meet milestones.
• Establish and improve manufacturing processes, build sequences, tooling approaches, and process docs.
• Maintain strong presence on production floor to drive builds and resolve issues.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Design, Tooling, Quality, and Production for manufacturability.
• Create manufacturing instructions and support internal process specifications.
• Design tools and fixtures directly or via internal tool design team or contractors.
• Be responsible for quality inspection of produced products.
• Collaborate with suppliers to develop processes and procure composites.
• Perform first article inspections to ensure builds meet standards.
• Seek out new manufacturing techniques to increase throughput and quality.

Skills

Composite manufacturing

Prototyping

Process design

GD&T

Quality inspection

DFM feedback

Project management

Team leadership

Tools

NX

CMM

CAM systems

Laser projection

CNC ply cutting

Job description

Astro Mechanica in San Francisco is hiring to stand up its airframe manufacturing operation from the ground up. You will shape facilities, workflows, tooling, and processes while coordinating with engineering, quality, and production to translate designs into scalable, producible hardware.

This hands-on leadership role requires deep composite manufacturing expertise, supplier collaboration, and rigorous first article inspections to ensure dimensional and quality standards across early builds.