Project Kuiper is an initiative to increase global broadband access through a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). Its mission is to bring fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world. Project Kuiper will help close the digital divide by delivering fast, affordable broadband to a wide range of customers, including consumers, businesses, government agencies, and other organizations operating in places without reliable connectivity.

We're looking for a Senior Optical Manufacturing Engineer to Lead Optical Head Assembly production development.

As the lead Manufacturing Engineer for a Line Replaceable unit at Project Kuiper, you will be directly responsible for the production process development, introduction, improvement, & maintenance of a key module on our next generation spacecraft. You’ll be the leading technical voice for a team of manufacturing engineers working on the product, solving challenging technical problems associated with delivering an ultra-high-performing optical, electrical, and mechatronic module to space.

You will serve as a key lynchpin connection design/development, factory operations, quality engineering, program management, and more as you drive the manufacturing processes, we use from initial production introduction to full rate production. You will leverage your expertise in optical systems design to partner with development on the design of future iterations of the Optical Head Assembly and our associated production test systems & tooling.

You’ll solve complex industrial challenges associated with balancing production velocity, exceptional quality, and cost competitive production concepts while ensuring smooth technical execution of current production operations. You’ll be a key animating force in the increase in production capacity through vision & execution of capital investment for production scaling & automation.

Key job responsibilities
- Conceptualize, design, develop, and improve production processes (assembly, integration, test processes) through collaboration/leadership of a team of manufacturing engineers.
- Serve as primary technical interface to development team for Optical Head Assembly, participating as the lead technical voice from the factory in Design Reviews, key technical escalations, and new product development activities.
- Support operations team directly by being a high solving power engineer, capable of bringing multiple diverging technical perspectives together in high pressure escalation moments such as quality containments.
- Own the capacity increase roadmap for production including defining the relevant capital equipment required for rate increase and helping to lead the design, procurement, install, and qualification of new rate enabling equipment.


A day in the life
- 25% - On the shop floor, working with production teams to implement new processes, review & solve key technical blockers in production, performing production development testing, etc.
- 25% - Independent development work such as deep diving on available data sets to identify and implement key production improvement actions, acting on quality escapes by developing and implementing new quality control measures, developing & executing to existing roadmaps for capacity increase, process simplification, etc.
- 40% - Meeting settings, collaborating with others on topics such as new design introductions, production process change management, production solution finding reviews, etc.
- 10% - Mentorship settings with other engineers on the team, performing collaborative work & coaching to develop the team members skillsets, while ensuring common team execution to your technical vision

About the team
The Optical Inter-Satellite Link Production team is a multi-disciplinary organization responsible for all aspects of production of the key modules enabling satellite-to-satellite communication. The Manufacturing Engineering Team is the technical arm of this organization, with 20+ engineers from all disciplines collaborating on all aspects of technical development & execution in production. As a Lead Manufacturing Engineer, you will be the technical leader of a team of 4-6 manufacturing engineers.