Sr. Operations Engineer, Blades and Vanes Foundry

About the role

SpaceX continues to revolutionize the launch industry by combining advanced technological developments with pragmatic and lean manufacturing. This is especially important for the future of rapid and high-volume Starship flight, where power generation is crucial. We are seeking a highly driven Senior Operations Engineer to serve as the extreme owner of the construction, buildout, and operational ramp-up of a new blades and vanes foundry. This role will own delivering complex projects rapidly, at minimum cost, while establishing lean, visually clear, and efficient production flows.

Responsibilities

• Design and own factory and production area layouts that follow lean principles, emphasizing clear visual indicators, linear flow, and operational efficiency.
• Own the full lifecycle of the foundry buildout, ensuring on-time and under-budget delivery of complex projects with minimum time and expense to the business.
• Act as the primary construction project manager and extreme owner for all multi-discipline aspects of the project, both in the field and office.
• Get hands-on and lead by example to ensure projects are completed rapidly.
• Perform project control tasks including detailed scheduling, cost tracking, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting.
• Facilitate all required city, county, and governmental approvals and permits.
• Interact daily with contractors, fabricators, engineers, and internal customers while resolving design and construction conflicts in the field in real-time.
• Coordinate with end users, facilities teams, and operations stakeholders for seamless building operations, maintenance, and handover.
• Develop tools and analytics to analyze delivery, capacity, and cost problems, providing clear data-driven guidance for decision making.
• Proactively identify operational challenges, inefficiencies, and opportunities for process simplification, and help implement effective solutions.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline.
• 5+ years of professional experience in industrial, operations, or construction engineering.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Process engineering experience including project management, capacity modeling, process mapping, and layouts.
• Experience with inventory, production, and capacity planning (including MRP/ERP systems).
• Experience as an industrial, operations, process or manufacturing engineer in a developmental manufacturing environment.
• Understanding of multiple disciplines such as HVAC, gases, civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, piping, geotechnical, and surveying.
• 1+ years of experience in using Excel, SQL, or Python/R for analysis or modeling dynamic systems.
• Experience with lean, six sigma, and related production principles.
• Ability to work well across teams and skill sets to find the simplest and best solution.
• Experience as a contributor to multi-disciplinary and cross-functional teams.

Additional Requirements

• Physical effort with lifting and carrying materials or equipment (up to 25 lbs.).
• Possible exposure to work in extreme outdoor environments - heat, cold, rain.
• Must be available to work extended hours and weekends when needed based on site operational needs.
• Occasional travel may be required to support projects at other sites (up to 25%).

Itar Requirements

• To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.