Staff Manufacturing Engineer (Rare-Earth Magnets)

Location: Research Triangle Park, NC, United States. Onsite role with regular production-floor presence and less than 25% travel for equipment development reviews and Factory Acceptance Tests.

Company

Manufactures American rare-earth permanent magnets for defense, aerospace, automotive, and other critical industries.

What you will do

• Support the full lifecycle of a 1 million square foot manufacturing facility expansion, from design and equipment specification through installation, commissioning, production startup, and scale-up.
• Evaluate manufacturing technologies and vendors, compare technical and financial proposals, and manage equipment requirements, schedules, performance, and deliverables.
• Own process development and production qualification for heavy production processes including alloy production, casting, jet milling, powder production, pressing, and sintering.
• Optimize throughput, quality, equipment reliability, OEE, station cycle times, yield, and production capacity.
• Provide hands-on production startup support, eliminate bottlenecks, and develop future process and equipment strategies with R&D.
• Develop and manage PFMEAs, control plans, process flows, CAD and electrical/pneumatic drawings, work instructions, calibration procedures, maintenance documentation, HMI manuals, vision programs, and MES transaction lists.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Metallurgical Engineering, or a related technical discipline with 7+ years of experience, or a master’s degree with 5+ years of experience.
• Hands-on experience creating, modifying, and validating complex equipment assemblies in CAD.
• Experience with heavy custom equipment design, vendor management, and full-cycle commissioning for thermal or raw material processing.
• Expertise developing PFMEAs, control plans, work instructions, and process flows.
• Ability to read, interpret, and create electrical schematics and pneumatic diagrams, including related engineering calculations.
• Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export-controlled information or facilities.

Nice to have

• Experience in heavy industrial manufacturing, metallurgy, foundry operations, or chemical processing.
• Experience handling reactive powders or working with high-temperature vacuum furnace environments.
• Proficiency with advanced simulation software for workflow and line balancing.
• Familiarity with MES implementation and transaction mapping.

Culture & Benefits

• Work across manufacturing design, equipment development, commissioning, and production scale-up.
• Regular presence on the production floor in hot, humid, noisy, and industrial environments.
• Use of required PPE, including respirators, with fit testing and adherence to safety, environmental, quality, and regulatory procedures.
• Ability to climb stairs, stand and walk for extended periods, and safely respond to changing production conditions is required.