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Lydian is developing sustainable aviation fuels from waste CO2, water, and renewable electricity, with breakthrough technology that produces jet fuel with 95% lower emissions than traditional sources. The company has achieved rapid milestones since 2021, including producing liquid fuel from a pilot system, and is backed by top climate investors.
As a Process Development Engineer, you will own the transition of ceramic component production from external vendors and manual workflows to a scalable, automated in-house process. For the first 6–12 months, you will perform hands-on production work including material prep, fixturing, joining, high-temperature thermal processing, and quality control while developing deep intuition for yield and reliability drivers. In parallel, you will design and build fixtures, test stands, and automation systems that make the process fast, repeatable, and ready to scale.
Key responsibilities include owning day-to-day ceramic production and hitting build schedules; leading the transition of critical processes in-house by mapping workflows and standing up equipment and procedures; designing, building, and validating mechanical test stands and fixtures from CAD through commissioning; designing and implementing automation and automated data collection systems; translating floor learnings into a scalable process with defined parameters and quality checks; characterizing sub-components, running root-cause analysis on defects, and driving measurable improvements; writing and maintaining SOPs and managing inventory; and fostering a culture where every failure drives concrete process improvements.
You will need a B.S. or M.S. in Mechanical, Materials, Chemical, or related engineering field, plus 3+ years of hands-on experience in manufacturing, process development, or hardware build environments. You must demonstrate the ability to take mechanical hardware from concept and CAD through fabrication, assembly, and commissioning, with personal design and build experience. Experience transferring processes from external vendors or R&D into repeatable internal production is required. Proficiency in 3D CAD and 2D production drawings is essential, along with comfort doing hands-on production work in lab or shop environments, including high-temperature processing. Strong attention to detail in experimental design, execution, and documentation is critical.
Preferred qualifications include experience with high-temperature materials (ceramics, superalloys, refractory materials, coatings) and joining processes (brazing, bonding, diffusion joining); high-temperature vacuum or furnace processes; programming interfaces to measurement or process equipment (Python, LabVIEW); familiarity with materials characterization methods; and hands-on fabrication skills (machining, welding, 3D printing).
