Optical Manufacturing Engineer (Space Optics)

Location: Los Angeles, California, United States; onsite role. The position involves access to ITAR-controlled information and items, so the hired candidate must be a U.S. person or otherwise eligible for a federally issued export-control license.

Base salary: $100,000–$140,000 per year, plus equity.

Company

hirify.global develops and mass-produces high-power satellite platforms and optical payloads for missions ranging from low Earth orbit to deep space.

What you will do

• Provide design-for-excellence guidance for optics, optomechanical mounts, bonded assemblies, and integrated electro-optical hardware.
• Develop manufacturing and assembly processes for space-qualified optical subsystems, including cleaning, bonding, mounting, curing, and alignment.
• Design alignment fixtures, handling tools, bonding tooling, and ground support equipment for precise and repeatable builds.
• Develop optical metrology, in-process inspection, and end-of-line testing methods, including interferometry, autocollimation, wavefront, and alignment verification.
• Create manufacturing documentation in the MES, lead root-cause analysis, and improve production flow as output scales.
• Support optical assembly integration and environmental qualification testing, including thermal-vacuum, vibration, and thermal-cycling campaigns.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical, optical, mechanical, aerospace, or another relevant engineering discipline.
• 3+ years of experience in manufacturing, integration, or design engineering within a high-volume, rapid-production environment.
• Experience developing production processes, setting up first-article manufacturing floors, and implementing process improvements.
• Experience with optomechanical design reviews, mechanical and optical drawings, GD&T, and optical tolerance callouts.
• Familiarity with optical metrology equipment, cleanroom requirements, FOD and ESD-sensitive hardware, and optical cleaning methods.
• Must meet U.S. export-control eligibility requirements: U.S. person status or eligibility for a federally issued export-control license.

Nice to have

• Experience with NX or equivalent CAD, Zemax, Ansys, STOP analysis, MES, and production test programming in Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB, or similar tools.
• Experience with high-volume optics manufacturing, reflective telescope architectures, optical fiber processing, and space-grade adhesives.
• Experience developing computer-aided alignment methods and qualifying optical assemblies for extreme environments.
• Knowledge of optical, contamination-control, materials, workmanship, environmental-test, and electronics-assembly standards.

Culture & Benefits

• Work on high-power satellite platforms and optical payloads intended for missions from LEO to deep space.
• Opportunity to develop processes for scaling optical hardware production to high launch and satellite volumes.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage, life insurance, paid time off, and paid parental leave.
• Equity participation and additional company perks.