Materials Engineer, Welding (Starship Components)

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.

MATERIALS ENGINEER, WELDING (STARSHIP COMPONENTS)

SpaceX continues to revolutionize the launch industry by combining advanced technological developments with pragmatic and lean manufacturing. Materials used on SpaceX vehicles are designed to withstand the extreme environments of launch, on-orbit operations, and reentry. This role will lead a team responsible for the support of advanced welding and joining processes on follow control devices and mechanisms that drive critical capabilities on Starship/Super Heavy - from regulators and butterfly valves to flap/fin actuators. We design, manufacture, and test valves, regulators, and actuators for maximum reliability in extreme environments, compatibility with various fluids, temperatures ranging from 80 to 800K, and pressures beyond 800 bar.

This position will own the manufacturing and development of SpaceX’s Starship components. A strong group of design and build engineers. The person in this position will help develop, qualify, and optimize welding designs and processes including but not limited to electron beam welding, laser beam welding, gas tungsten arc welding, orbital tube welding, resistance welding, gas metal arc welding, and plasma arc welding. The welding engineer in this role will interface daily with design, tooling, automation, build, and test engineers to make welding judgment calls and improvements and will enforce standardized practices and procedures on multiple welded assemblies.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develop, optimize, and qualify weld processes and parameters for multiple welding processes including but not limited to electron beam welding, laser beam welding, gas tungsten arc welding, orbital tube welding, resistance welding, and gas metal arc welding

• Support production operations on full scale welded assemblies, providing direction to production technicians, specialists, and welders on correct techniques in a fast paced manufacturing environment

• Support design, manufacturing, and materials engineering with root cause analysis

• Work closely with design, tooling, automation, and test engineers to improve welded designs for manufacturing

• Set up welding qualification test campaigns and interpret mechanical testing and NDE results

• Work closely with NDE personnel to interpret weld quality on development and flight hardware in addition to developing and implementing innovative state-of-the-art NDE techniques

• Develop and implement improved process control where possible using test and NDE results as feedback loop

• Set up automated welding solutions in an effort to drive process consistency

• Scope out new welding technologies that may be employed to improve rate/quality/efficiency