Sr. Welding Engineer

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.

SR. WELDING ENGINEER 

This position will support manufacturing and development of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Starship launch vehicles, Dragon spacecraft, and Starlink satellites alongside 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 and manufacturing 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, gas metal arc welding, friction stir welding, and plasma arc welding

• Support production operations on full scale welded assemblies, providing direction to manufacturing engineers 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 development 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

• Support on-site manufacturing and development of Starlink, F9, Dragon, Starship, and related propulsion engines 

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline

• 5+ years of experience with hands-on fabrication, manufacturing, or testing experience of welded assemblies

PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

• Master’s degree in welding engineering or related technical program

• Hands on welding experience of stainless steel, nickel-based, titanium, copper, and aluminum alloys

• Experience with brazing, joining, and metallographic interpretation

• Fundamental understanding of welding processes including, but not limited to, electron beam,