Senior Manufacturing Design Engineer

About this role

Skydio is the leading US drone company and the world leader in autonomous flight, the key technology for the future of drones and aerial mobility. The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best-in-class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users, from utility inspectors https://www.skydio.com/solutions/energy-and-utilities to first responders https://www.skydio.com/solutions/public-safety, soldiers in battlefield scenarios https://www.skydio.com/solutions/national-security/tactical-isr, and beyond https://www.skydio.com/solutions.

About the Role:

The Senior Manufacturing Design Engineer is responsible for developing, validating, and scaling the manufacturing processes used to build advanced unmanned aircraft systems. This role bridges product development and production, ensuring new drone designs can be manufactured safely, reliably, and at the required cost, quality, and production rate.

The engineer will work cross-functionally with Design Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Test Engineering, and Production to transition products from prototype builds through production launch and sustained high-volume manufacturing.

How You’ll Make an Impact:

NEW PRODUCT INTRODUCTION

- Lead manufacturing activities for new drone products and major design changes from prototype through production launch.

- Develop manufacturing plans, process flows, workstation layouts, tooling strategies, and production-readiness requirements.

- Participate in design reviews and provide actionable design-for-manufacturing, assembly, test, automation, and serviceability feedback.

- Coordinate prototype, engineering-validation, design-validation, and production-validation builds.

- Identify manufacturing risks early and drive mitigation plans to closure.

- Establish production-readiness criteria and support formal manufacturing readiness reviews.

MANUFACTURING PROCESS DEVELOPMENT

- Develop and validate manufacturing processes for mechanical assembly, electronics integration, adhesive bonding, fastening, soldering, calibration, software loading, functional testing, and final product acceptance.

- Define critical process parameters and product characteristics that affect safety, performance, reliability, and regulatory compliance.

- Create process specifications, work instructions, standard work, control plans, inspection requirements, and manufacturing bills of material.

- Design or specify production tooling, fixtures, error-proofing devices, and semi-automated equipment.

- Conduct process capability studies, gauge repeatability and reproducibility studies, and equipment qualification.

- Use statistical methods and structured experimentation to establish robust operating windows.

PRODUCTION SCALING AND OPTIMIZATION

- Translate production forecasts into labor, equipment, tooling, floor-space, and capacity requirements.

- Perform time studies, line balancing, capacity modeling, and bottleneck analysis.

- Improve production flow, ergonomics, material presentation, and operator utilization.

- Develop scalable processes that support increasing production volumes without compromising quality or safety.

- Identify and implement opportunities for automation based on safety, quality, capacity, technical feasibility, and return on investment.

- Support factory layout development and production-line commissioning.

QUALITY AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

- Lead root-cause investigations for manufacturing defects, test failures, yield losses, and reliability issues.

- Implement corrective and preventive actions using tools such as 5 Whys, fishbone analysis, fault-tree analysis, and 8D.

- Develop and improve manufacturing metrics, including first-pass yield, cycle time, throughput, scrap, rework, downtime, and overall equipment effectiveness.

- Partner with Quality Engineering to develop process failure mode and effects analyses, control plans, inspection methods, and acceptance criteria.

- Reduce process variation and improve capability using Lean and Six Sigma methods.

- Support configuration control, nonconformance disposition, and engineering change implementation.

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL AND SUPPLIER SUPPORT

- Partner with design teams on airframes, propulsion systems, avionics, cameras, sensors, batteries, gimbals, payloads, and communications hardware.

- Collaborate with Test Engineering to develop efficient functional, calibration, and end-of-line testing strategies.

- Work with Supply Chain and suppliers to improve component manufacturability, quality, capacity, and production readiness.

- Support make-versus-buy evaluations and equipment or capital-expenditure business cases.

- Train technicians, production leads, and operators on new processes, equipment, and work instructions.

- Provide hands-on support during pilot builds, production ramps, and critical manufacturing issues.

What Makes You a Good Fit:

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

- Bachelor’s degree in Manufacturing Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, or a related technical field.

- Three or more 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 and using it to improve yield, cycle time, cost, or process…