Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Highlights

Company Profile

SpaceX manufactures, designs, and launches the world’s most advanced rockets and spacecraft. It aims to revolutionize space transportation, with the ultimate goal of making life multi-planetary. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.

Job Profile

The company is looking for a Welding Engineer who can support the manufacturing and development of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Starship launch vehicles, Dragon spacecraft, and Starlink satellites alongside a strong group of design and build engineers.

The person in this position will help develop, qualify, and optimize welding designs and processes including but not limited to; electron beam welding, laser beam welding, gas tungsten arc welding, orbital tube welding, resistance welding, gas metal arc welding, and plasma arc welding.

The welding engineer in this role will interface daily with design and manufacturing engineers to make welding judgment calls and improvements and will enforce standardized practices and procedures on multiple welded assemblies.

Educational Qualification

• The aspiring applicants should have completed a Bachelor’s Degree in an engineering discipline from a welding school, college, or tech center.

Work Experience

• The candidates should have hands-on fabrication, manufacturing, or testing experience of welded assemblies

Duties/Responsibilities

• Develop and implement improved process control where possible using test and NDE results as a feedback loop
• Develop, optimize, and qualify weld processes and parameters for multiple welding processes including but not limited to: electron beam welding, laser beam welding, gas tungsten arc welding, orbital tube welding, resistance welding, gas metal arc welding, friction stir welding, and plasma arc welding
• Scope out new welding technologies that may be employed to improve rate/quality/efficiency
• Set up automated welding solutions in an effort to drive process consistency
• Set up welding qualification test campaigns and interpret mechanical testing and NDE results
• Support design, manufacturing, and materials engineering with root cause analysis
• Support production operations on full scale welded assemblies, providing direction to manufacturing engineers and welders on correct techniques in a fast-paced manufacturing environment
• Work closely with design, tooling, automation, and development engineers to improve welded designs for manufacturing
• Work closely with NDE personnel to interpret weld quality on development and flight hardware in addition to developing and implementing innovative state-of-the-art NDE techniques

Preferred Skills/Experience

• Experience with brazing, joining, and metallographic interpretation
• Experience with root cause analysis and corrective actions including, but not limited to, optical and SEM fractography/metallography, hardness, chemical analysis, and mechanical testing
• Fundamental understanding of welding processes including, but not limited to, electron beam, laser beam, plasma arc, resistance, friction-stir, gas tungsten arc, and gas metal arc
• Hands-on welding experience of stainless steel, nickel-based, titanium, copper, and aluminum alloys
• Master’s degree in welding engineering or related technical program
• Robot programming experience for automated welding solutions
• Self-motivated engineer with keen attention to detail
• Tooling design experience for welded assemblies to reduce part distortion and improve part consistency
• Understanding of weld strength testing methodologies, standards, and data acquisition systems used to make informed welding decisions (ASTM E8, E399, E740, ISO 15653, AWS D17.X, AWS C7.X, thermos-couples, strain gauges, etc.)

Physical Requirements

• Ability to perform job duties that require standing, kneeling, crouching, twisting upper body, working in cramped positions in small openings, and climbing hand over hand
• Must be willing to work long hours and weekends as needed to support and maintain build schedules
• Strong ability to multi-task and communicate status and results with a broad spectrum of internal and external departments
• Travel may be required to other SpaceX facilities in Texas and Washington state (up to 50%)

ITAR Requirements

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Employer’s Statement

SpaceX is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with SpaceX is governed on the basis of merit, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.