Solar Cell Screen Printing Equipment Engineer - High-Volume Production

United States Digital Space LLC; Lockhart (TX); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC is seeking a Screen Printing Equipment Engineer for Starlink's solar cell production. You will own the screen printing and metallization hardware, ensuring uptime and high-quality silicon heterojunction cells for Starlink satellites and Moon/Mars missions.

You will collaborate with facilities and process teams to install, qualify, and maintain equipment, drive capacity improvements, and implement preventive maintenance, with travel up to 20% as needed.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or related technical discipline.
• 2+ years hands-on experience owning and maintaining screen printing or metallization equipment in a high-volume semiconductor, solar manufacturing, or related environment.
• Experience handling hazardous chemicals safely (pastes, solvents, etc.).
• 5+ years hands-on experience owning and maintaining screen printing equipment in a high-volume semiconductor or solar manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated success improving equipment uptime and reliability in a 24/7 high-volume production setting.
• Strong knowledge of screen printing tool architecture, subsystems, and related automation hardware.
• Experience scaling equipment from pilot to very high-volume production.
• Proficiency with statistical tools (JMP, Minitab) and reliability engineering principles.

Responsibilities

• Install, qualify, maintain, and continuously improve high-throughput screen printing equipment for heterojunction silicon solar cell manufacturing.
• Drive equipment reliability and uptime to support large-volume production with minimal downtime; run experiments and analyze data to improve capacity and reduce variation.
• Develop and execute robust preventive and predictive maintenance strategies and spare parts programs.
• Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions on all equipment issues, including print heads, squeegee systems, alignment/vision, conveyors, ovens, and automation.
• Partner with Process Engineers to implement new process requirements on existing and future equipment platforms.
• Evaluate and select next-generation high-throughput tools capable of 1GW+ per tool scale production.
• Work with vendors on equipment design improvements and custom solutions for HJT 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.
• Attend meetings to communicate factory state to leadership.

Skills

Hands-on equipment maintenance

Equipment reliability

Project management

Statistical tools (JMP, Minitab)

Troubleshooting

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering

Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering

Bachelor's degree in Materials Science

Tools

JMP

Minitab

Electro-pneumatic robots

Transfer module systems

Job description

United States Digital Space LLC is seeking a Screen Printing Equipment Engineer for Starlink's solar cell production. You will own the screen printing and metallization hardware, ensuring uptime and high-quality silicon heterojunction cells for Starlink satellites and Moon/Mars missions.

You will collaborate with facilities and process teams to install, qualify, and maintain equipment, drive capacity improvements, and implement preventive maintenance, with travel up to 20% as needed.