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Salary: USD 100,000 - 180,000 / annual
Amca is restoring America's engineering capability to design and manufacture critical components and subsystems for defense, aerospace, and core infrastructure. This Supply Chain Engineer role combines product ownership of build-to-print customer contracts with supplier quality and defect management across machined, fabricated, formed, and molded hardware.
You will serve as product owner for assigned build-to-print contracts from award through first article to rate production. This includes decomposing customer technical data packages into requirements matrices, building and owning program schedules (including long-lead materials, tooling, first article, and qualification), and acting as the primary technical interface to customers on status, manufacturability, deviations, waivers, and source inspection. You own configuration control against drawing revisions and program cost against the quote.
On the quality side, you own supplier-caused defects end-to-end: containment, scope, removal of affected parts, disposition, return to vendor, and closure. You run material review and nonconformance processes with quality, engineering, and production. You issue supplier corrective and preventive actions, evaluate responses on technical merit, and verify effectiveness. You lead root cause investigations on dimensional, material, and process escapes—including print interpretation disputes, setup and fixturing errors, tool wear, heat treat and plating deviations, and raw material nonconformance. Over time, you reduce the volume of vendor-caused defects reaching Amca factories.
You evaluate and onboard machine shops, fabricators, foundries, forge houses, molders, and special process houses through capability assessment, quality system review, and onsite audit against AS9100, NADCAP, and program requirements. You own first article inspection (AS9102) and production readiness for new and transitioning parts, including ballooned drawings, inspection plans, and dimensional and CMM reporting. You define technical requirements to suppliers and confirm compliance before production release, covering drawing and GD&T interpretation, AMS and MIL material specifications, and special process callouts. You provide onsite technical support on machining strategy, tooling, fixturing, process control, and inspection approach, and drive supplier improvement plans to measurable outcomes.
You analyze supplier quality and delivery data to isolate systemic gaps and convert them into targeted projects at specific suppliers. You identify and mitigate supply chain risk, including sole-source exposure on complex machined and formed parts, capacity constraints at special process houses, long-lead raw material and forgings, and tooling ownership and transferability. You work with design, test, and build engineers to understand design intent and translate it into supplier requirements. You develop the standards and documentation that make supplier quality and program execution repeatable as Amca scales.
Your commodities span machining, castings, forgings, sheet metal and fabrication, injection molding, soft goods, and special processes including heat treat, plating, coatings, welding, and NDT.
In your first year, you own your programs and commodities. Contractual first article and delivery milestones are met, there are no customer escapes, there is no schedule slip the customer hears about after the fact, you demonstrate measurable reduction in vendor-caused defects reaching Amca factories, and your corrective actions are closed with objective evidence.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or related engineering discipline
- 2+ years of professional or internship experience in quality, manufacturing, process, program, or supply chain engineering role
- Demonstrated ability to read engineering drawings, including GD&T
- Working knowledge of at least one primary mechanical process (CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, casting, forging, or injection molding)
- Demonstrated ownership of a project or program with a hard external commitment, where you built the schedule, drove people who did not report to you, and were accountable for the outcome
- Comfortable communicating directly with customers and suppliers on technical, quality, and schedule commitments
- Based in El Segundo, CA, onsite five days a week; remote work not considered
- Ability to travel up to 25% to supplier facilities, Amca factories, and customer sites
- Willing to work extended hours as needed to support production and resolve critical issues
- Valid driver's license
- Must be a U.S. person as defined by ITAR (U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or protected person)
PREFERRED:
- Aerospace, defense, or other regulated hardware industry background
- Technical program management, product owner, or NPI experience in hardware environment
- Build-to-print or contract manufacturing experience, including technical data package review and requirements flow-down
- Deep technical experience in machining, castings, forgings, sheet metal, injection molding, or soft goods
- NADCAP special process familiarity (heat treat, chemical processing, coatings, welding, NDT)
- AS9100 or comparable quality management system, AS9102 first article, and supplier approval processes
- Metrology and inspection methods, including CMM programming or interpretation of dimensional results
- Prime contractor and government requirements, including FAR/DFARS flow-downs, contract quality clauses, and government source inspection
- Root cause analysis, FMEA, SPC, design of experiments, and lean manufacturing concepts
- Experience owning schedules in formal tool and reporting program status to leadership and external customers
- Proficiency with large data sets, including SQL, for supplier and program performance analysis
