Manufacturing Automation Engineer

Who You'll Join

A seed-stage mechanical engineering company in Austin building automated machining systems designed to run without supervision, through nights and weekends. They are moving fast, expanding facilities after their next funding round, and need their first Manufacturing Automation Engineer to standardize processes and build out the automation stack from scratch. If you want to own the architecture of a lights-out machining cell rather than maintain someone else's work, this is the role.

What You'll Do

• Define the standard tool set, tool wear parameters, and swap thresholds across the cell.
• Design the vise and workholding system to cover the widest range of parts.
• Own the pallet strategy, including job assignment and sequencing for unattended operation.
• Specify and implement machine monitoring hardware for spindle load, torque, and vibration.
• Define the quality inspection stack, evaluating CT scanning, in-machine probing, and CMM.
• Lead equipment selection for CNC machines, wash stations, and quality hardware.
• Prove out new parts through first article and process qualification before unattended release.

Who You Are

• Hold a BS or MS in mechanical engineering from a top engineering school.
• Bring 3 or more years of hands-on mechanical or manufacturing engineering.
• Have designed, built and tested real hardware yourself: prototypes, test rigs, fixtures or machines.
• Work comfortably on the shop floor and think at a systems level simultaneously.
• Are eligible to work in the US without visa sponsorship, and are ITAR compliant.
• Bonus, not required: CNC machining, CAM or machine-shop experience.
• Bonus: automation or robotics work, or hard alloys like titanium and Inconel, ideally in aerospace or defense.

Tech Stack

Mechanical design and CAD, hands-on prototyping, CNC machining and CAM (a bonus, not required), G-code, in-process probing, machine monitoring (Marposs, Caron Engineering), automated CMM, CT scanning, pallet automation systems

Why You'll Thrive

• Earn up to $200K + equity in a company at an early, high-growth stage.
• Build the automation cell architecture from scratch, with genuine ownership from day one.
• Solve real inefficiencies in a shop that needs standardisation, not incremental improvement.
• Work directly with software engineers to push lights-out production further than it has gone.
• Join before the Series A expansion and grow with the team as the facility scales.