Engineer – Manufacturing Sr

Application close date:
Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the requisition is closed.

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

This role is part of Blue Origin Operations, which is comprised of Integrated Supply Chain, Test Operations, Safety, Quality, and Mission Assurance. This includes Manufacturing and Supply Chain support across all Blue Origin facilities.

Job Description

Blue Origin is seeking a Senior Manufacturing Engineer to serve as the Manufacturing Engineering Subject Matter Expert for the new Electric Propulsion program. The Electric Propulsion Production Team will be responsible for transitioning Electric Propulsion Thruster variants from design into high-rate production. This is a high-visibility, high-impact role reporting directly to the Director of Operations.

This person will have impact from day one on setting the manufacturing standard, driving speed and decisiveness, developing processes, tooling, procedures, and building the ME capability of the entire team to deliver electric propulsion systems at rate.

This is not a role for someone who optimizes things that shouldn't exist. We need someone who can identify waste at its root, eliminate it, and teach others to do the same.

Key Responsibilities:

ME Leadership

- Serve as the Manufacturing Engineering SME across the Electric Propulsion value stream
- Establish and enforce manufacturing best practices; mentor and guide MEs at all levels to raise the technical floor of the entire organization
- Drive a culture of speed, decisiveness, and first-principles thinking — challenge MEs to eliminate processes that shouldn't exist before optimizing the ones that should
- Represent Manufacturing Engineering in high-visibility program forums, design reviews, and leadership readouts
- Serve as the technical escalation point for complex manufacturing problems; break down ambiguous failures to their root physical and materials-level causes

Design for Manufacturability (DFM/DFx)

- Provide assertive, data-backed DFM feedback to design engineers — including those resistant to change — and drive producibility improvements that reduce cost and cycle time

- Engage early in the design lifecycle to influence hardware before it becomes expensive to change

- Lead DFM/DFA reviews
- Apply first-principles and materials science knowledge to evaluate design decisions at the physics level, not just the process level

Production Standup & New Product Introduction

- Lead manufacturing engineering support for the standup of the Electric Propulsion production line, from pilot through high-rate production
- Drive the transition from development to production: define processes, write work instructions, establish tooling and fixturing, and own the manufacturing readiness of the value stream
- Lead, execute, or assist the standup of manufacturing cells or lines as the program scales

Technical Foundation & Process Engineering Ownership

- Draw on direct prior experience authoring work instructions, managing manufacturing BOMs, and developing process documentation — applying that foundation to review, approve, and elevate the work of others rather than executing it day-to-day
- Develop, document, and qualify manufacturing processes for Electric Propulsion Thruster components and assemblies
- Apply first-principles and materials-level thinking to develop robust processes for precision assembly, machining, joining, and propulsion subsystems
- Drive continuous improvement using lean principles; eliminate non-value-added work at its root
- Establish process controls, quality gates, and inspection plans that scale with production rate increases
- Lead root cause analysis and corrective action for non-conformances; conduct FMEAs and drive lessons learned back into the design and process baseline

Cross-Functional Collaboration

- Work closely with Design Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, and Operations to ensure producibility, cost efficiency, and schedule alignment
- Partner with Technicians and IEs on the floor to solve problems in real time and transfer manufacturing knowledge
- Partner with supply chain on make/buy decisions; develop and qualify suppliers for critical manufacturing processes

Automation Strategy & Implementation

- Lead the identification, strategy development, and implementation of manufacturing automation
- Drive automation stand-up from concept through commissioning — whether executing directly or overseeing implementation through others
- Develop and deploy AI-assisted manufacturing tools including but not limited to vision-based inspection systems, predictive quality analytics, and process optimization algorithms
- Leverage AI productivity tools to accelerate engineering analysis, troubleshooting, and documentation workflows across the ME team
- Build the team's capability and comfort with AI-enabled engineering — this person leads by example

Minimum Qualifications:

- Bachelor of Science in Mechanical, Manufacturing, Aerospace, or Materials Science Engineering from an accredited university — this role requires deep hardware and materials fluency; process or systems-focused backgrounds alone will not be sufficient
- 8+ years of direct manufacturing engineering experience in a production or development-to-production environment
- 5+ years of experience authoring work instructions and managing manufacturing BOMs for complex hardware — this is a foundation, not a day-to-day expectation of the role
- Demonstrated hands-on experience manufacturing propulsion or aerospace hardware — you must know how to build the hardware, not just document it
- Proven ability to deliver assertive DFM feedback to design engineers and drive design changes in a cross-functional environment
- Demonstrated ability to break down complex manufacturing failures to first-principles and materials-level root causes
- Experience across multiple manufacturing domains including at minimum: precision assembly, welding, machining, and fluid/propulsion systems
- Experience supporting or leading NPI and transition-to-production efforts
- Experience leading or executing the stand-up of an automated manufacturing line or cell
- Demonstrated ability to mentor and elevate the technical capability of other engineers

Preferred Qualifications: