Staff DFx Manufacturing Engineer

Hardware FYI; Costa Mesa (CA); Hybrid; USD 166,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa, CA, seeks a Staff DFx Manufacturing Engineer to drive design-for-manufacturability for avionics, electronics, and harnessing across its portfolio. You will embed with design teams, lead DFx reviews, and translate constraints into practical guidance, mentoring engineers and building scalable DFx tools.

Travel to sites and suppliers is <10%. You will shape producibility from concept to rate production and collaborate across supply chain, quality, and operations to ensure reliable, affordable manufacturing.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or related field.
• 12+ years in manufacturing or producibility with focus on electronics.
• Master’s degree can substitute 2 years experience.
• Deep knowledge of electronics manufacturing: SMT, soldering, coating, harnessing.
• Experience leading DFM/DFA/DFT reviews and implementing design changes.
• Cross-functional work across design, supply chain, quality, and operations.
• Ability to read schematics, PCB layouts, and harness drawings for producibility.
• Strong IPC standards knowledge (IPC-A-610, J-STD-001, IPC-620, IPC-6012).
• Excellent communication to present DFx findings to leadership.
• Fast-paced, multi-program environment with hands-on credibility.
• U.S. Person due to access requirements.

Responsibilities

• Own and drive the DFx process for avionics, electronics, and harnessing across programs from concept to rate production.
• Lead DFM/DFA/DFT reviews and identify producibility risks with scoring methods.
• Embed with design teams to give real-time feedback on PCBA layout, components, connectors, and test access.
• Collaborate daily with supply chain, quality, operations, and design to ensure producibility.
• Develop and maintain DFx standards, guidelines, and scorecards for electronics manufacturing.
• Analyze designs across manufacturability, quality, specs, process capability, and tech maturity.
• Champion testability early with test points, boundary scan, and production test strategies.
• Ensure DFx findings feed into inspection plans and process control.
• Assess supplier capability and support make-vs-buy decisions for DFx compliance.
• Close loop between production feedback and upstream design improvements; mentor junior staff.
• Travel to sites and suppliers as needed (<10%).

Skills

DFx

Electronics manufact.

Cross-functional collab

Schematic review

IPC standards

Mentoring/leadership

Travel up to 10%

Education

Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering

Master’s degree optional

Tools

Altium

KiCad

Job description

About the Team

Anduril’s Air Dominance & Strike (AD&S) Manufacturing Engineering team is seeking a Staff DFxManufacturing Engineer to drive design-for-manufacturability, assembly, and testability across our avionics, electronics, and harnessing subsystems. This role spans our full portfolio of autonomous aircraft, cruise missiles, and loitering munitions — ensuring that electronics hardware is designed to be produced at scale from the earliest stages of development.

As a Staff-level individual contributor, you will be the technical authority on DFx for electronics and avionics across AD&S. You will embed with design engineering teams during concept and detailed design, lead structured DFx reviews, and translate manufacturing constraints into actionable design guidance. This is an inherently cross-functional role: you will work daily alongside supply chain, design engineering, quality, and operations teams to ensure producibility is built into every decision, from component selection through final acceptance. Your work directly shapes whether our products can be built reliably, affordably, and at the rate our programs demand.

You will also mentor manufacturing engineers across programs and build the DFx methodology and toolset that scales with the organization.

What you’ll do

• Own and drive the DFx process for avionics, electronics, and harnessing subsystems across AD&S programs, from concept through rate production.
• Lead structured DFM/DFA/DFT reviews at key design milestones, applying a rigorous scoring methodology to identify producibility risks and drive design changes before they become production problems.
• Embed with electrical and avionics design engineering teams to provide real-time manufacturing feedback on PCBA layout, component selection, connector and harnessing architecture, and test access.
• Work cross-functionally with supply chain, quality, operations, and design engineering on a daily basis — this role is the connective tissue between what gets designed and what gets built.
• Develop and maintain DFx standards, guidelines, and scorecards specific to electronics manufacturing processes including SMT, wave/selective solder, conformal coating, potting, wire harness fabrication, and box-build assembly.
• Analyze designs across five key lenses — manufacturability/assembly, quality, adherence to specification, process capability, and technology maturity — to produce quantified risk assessments that inform engineering and program decisions.
• Champion testability early in the design cycle: define test point access, boundary scan requirements, functional test strategies, and fixtures needed for production-rate acceptance testing.
• Partner with quality engineering to ensure DFx findings flow into inspection plans, acceptance criteria, and process control strategies.
• Collaborate with supply chain and sourcing teams to assess supplier manufacturing capability, support make-vs-buy decisions, and ensure external production meets DFx requirements.
• Close the loop between production floor feedback and upstream design improvements by working directly with operations and production engineering teams.
• Build and evolve the DFx toolkit — templates, scoring rubrics, lessons-learned databases, and training materials — so that DFx knowledge scales beyond any single person.
• Mentor and develop junior and mid-level manufacturing engineers on DFx principles and review techniques.
• Travel to production sites, suppliers, and partner facilities as needed (<10%).

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related field.
• 12+ years of experience in manufacturing engineering, process engineering, or producibility engineering with a significant focus on electronics, avionics, or electromechanical assemblies. A
• Master’s Degree can replace 2 years of work experience.
• Deep working knowledge of electronics manufacturing processes: SMT placement and reflow, wave and selective soldering, conformal coating, potting and encapsulation, cable and harness fabrication, and electromechanical box-build.
• Demonstrated experience leading DFM/DFA/DFT reviews and translating findings into measurable design improvements.
• Proven ability to work cross-functionally across design engineering, supply chain, quality, and operations — and to be effective without positional authority.
• Ability to read and critically evaluate electrical schematics, PCB layouts, harness drawings, and mechanical packaging for producibility.
• Strong command of IPC standards (IPC-A-610, J-STD-001, IPC-620, IPC-6012) and their application to design and process decisions.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present DFx findings to engineering leadership and drive alignment on design changes.
• Comfortable working across multiple programs simultaneously in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
• Personal experience physically building or reworking electronic assemblies (soldering, harness build, test, debug). Hands-on credibility matters.
• Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in engineering or a related field.
• Experience in aerospace or defense electronics production, particularly with qualified or flight-critical hardware.
• Familiarity with AS9100/AS9102 quality management systems and First Article Inspection processes.
• Experience with PCBA insourcing or standing up electronics manufacturing lines (SMT, test, integration).
• Proficiency in ECAD tools (Altium, KiCad, or similar) sufficient to review designs independently.
• Background in Design of Experiments (DOE), statistical process control, or Six Sigma applied to electronics manufacturing.
• Experience developing automated or semi-automated test solutions for production electronics.
• Appropriate clearance classification.

US Salary Range

$166,000

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$220,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril’s total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next.

For more information, Explore Our Benefits.