Senior Wet-Etch Equipment Engineer — Solar Cells

Spacex; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

SpaceX is seeking a Wet Etch Equipment Engineer for Starlink solar cell production. You will own wet chemical texturing and preclean tools in a high-volume silicon solar cell line, collaborating with process and facilities teams to maximize tool availability and performance.

You will drive reliability, run tests, and partner with vendors to implement advanced equipment capable of scaling to GW+ per tool, supporting Starlink satellites and mission objectives.

Responsibilities

• Install, qualify, maintain, and improve high-throughput texturing and pre-clean equipment for heterojunction silicon solar cell manufacturing.
• Improve capacity (UPH), reduce tool-to-tool variation, and improve defect performance through experiments and data analysis.
• Develop and execute preventive and predictive maintenance strategies, spare parts programs, and tool matching protocols for high-volume manufacturing.
• Lead root-cause analysis and corrective actions for equipment issues including chemical delivery, pumps, filtration, temperature control, robotics, and exhaust systems.
• Partner with Process Engineers to implement new process requirements on existing and future equipment platforms.
• Evaluate and select next-generation high-throughput texturing tools capable of supporting 1GW+ per tool scale production.
• Work with vendors on equipment design improvements, upgrades, and custom solutions tailored to heterojunction solar cell requirements.
• Establish equipment performance metrics (OEE, MTBF, MTTR) and implement SPC for hardware stability.
• Ensure all equipment meets cleanroom, safety, and high-reliability manufacturing standards.
• Analyze production processes and machinery from a first principles, physics-based approach.

Job description

SpaceX is seeking a Wet Etch Equipment Engineer for Starlink solar cell production. You will own wet chemical texturing and preclean tools in a high-volume silicon solar cell line, collaborating with process and facilities teams to maximize tool availability and performance.

You will drive reliability, run tests, and partner with vendors to implement advanced equipment capable of scaling to GW+ per tool, supporting Starlink satellites and mission objectives.