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Salary: USD 145,000 - 219,000 / annual
Skydio is the leading US autonomous drone company, serving defense, public safety, and enterprise customers. As Senior Manufacturing Design Engineer, you will bridge product development and production, ensuring advanced unmanned aircraft systems can be manufactured safely, reliably, and at required cost, quality, and production rates.
You will lead manufacturing activities for new drone products from prototype through production launch, developing manufacturing plans, process flows, workstation layouts, and tooling strategies. You'll participate in design reviews, providing design-for-manufacturing and assembly feedback, and coordinate prototype through production-validation builds. You'll identify manufacturing risks early and drive mitigation plans, establishing production-readiness criteria and supporting formal manufacturing readiness reviews.
In manufacturing process development, you will develop and validate processes for mechanical assembly, electronics integration, adhesive bonding, fastening, soldering, calibration, software loading, and functional testing. You'll define critical process parameters affecting safety, performance, reliability, and regulatory compliance, create process specifications and work instructions, design production tooling and fixtures, and conduct process capability and gauge repeatability studies using statistical methods and structured experimentation.
For production scaling, you'll translate forecasts into labor, equipment, tooling, and capacity requirements, perform time studies and line balancing, improve production flow and ergonomics, and develop scalable processes supporting increasing volumes. You'll identify automation opportunities and support factory layout and production-line commissioning.
You will lead root-cause investigations for manufacturing defects and reliability issues using 5 Whys, fishbone analysis, and 8D methods. You'll develop manufacturing metrics, partner with Quality Engineering on failure mode analyses, reduce process variation using Lean and Six Sigma, and support configuration control and engineering change implementation.
Cross-functionally, you'll partner with design teams on airframes, propulsion, avionics, cameras, sensors, batteries, and communications hardware. You'll collaborate with Test Engineering on functional and end-of-line testing strategies, work with Supply Chain on component manufacturability, support make-versus-buy evaluations, train technicians and operators, and provide hands-on support during pilot builds and production ramps.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor's degree in Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, or related technical field
- 3+ years of experience in manufacturing engineering, process development, new product introduction, or production engineering
- Experience transitioning complex electromechanical products from development into production
- Working knowledge of design for manufacturing and assembly, process validation, production tooling, and manufacturing documentation
- Experience with structured problem-solving, root-cause analysis, and corrective-action methods
- Ability to interpret engineering drawings, specifications, bills of material, and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing
- Experience analyzing manufacturing data to improve yield, cycle time, cost, or process capability
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to work effectively in fast-paced environment with evolving products and production requirements
- Willingness to work directly on manufacturing floor and support time-sensitive production builds
- FAA Part 107 certification strongly encouraged within first 60 days; required for certain positions
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience manufacturing drones, aerospace products, robotics, autonomous systems, consumer electronics, or complex electromechanical assemblies
- Knowledge of aerospace quality systems (AS9100, first-article inspection, configuration management, production traceability)
- Experience with PCB assemblies, cameras, optical systems, gimbals, inertial sensors, electric motors, batteries, composite structures, or precision mechanical assemblies
- Experience developing adhesive-bonding, torque-controlled fastening, soldering, calibration, or environmentally controlled processes
- Familiarity with production databases, manufacturing execution systems, ERP systems, and product lifecycle management tools
- Experience with CAD, tolerance analysis, statistical analysis, and manufacturing simulation tools
- Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, or Design for Six Sigma training
- Experience specifying, purchasing, commissioning, or validating automated manufacturing equipment
- Familiarity with regulated defense or export-controlled manufacturing environments
About Skydio
Defense / GovTech; Industrial — autonomous drones for defense, public safety, and enterprise.
