Manufacturing Engineer, CNC

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Own CNC manufacturing strategy and producibility for assigned hardware and manufacturing projects.
• Partner with design engineering early in the product lifecycle to influence geometry, tolerances, material selection, datum structures, and other design decisions that affect manufacturability.
• Define the overall machining approach, including operation breakdown, machine platform, setup strategy, datum strategy, workholding concept, tooling approach, inspection strategy, and process-control requirements.
• Provide technical direction to CAM programmers while allowing programmers to own the detailed creation and maintenance of CNC programs.
• Work with machinists during prove-out and production to understand process behavior, identify failure modes, and determine required engineering changes.
• Lead larger CNC process improvements involving changes to machining strategy, tooling, workholding, probing, sequencing, machine utilization, or process architecture.
• Drive first-article and process-development activities from initial manufacturing strategy through a stable, repeatable production process.
• Identify and resolve manufacturing risks related to chatter, distortion, tool wear, thermal behavior, dimensional drift, surface finish, workholding, machine capability, and process variation.

Job requirements

• 5+ years of experience in CNC manufacturing engineering, machining, applications engineering, process engineering, or advanced manufacturing.
• Strong practical understanding of CNC milling, turning, 5-axis machining, and/or mill-turn manufacturing.
• Demonstrated ability to define machining strategies and solve complex manufacturing problems at the process level.
• Strong understanding of cutting tools, workholding, feeds and speeds, material removal, machine dynamics, and machining fundamentals.
• Experience working closely with CAM programmers and the ability to review, challenge, and provide technical direction on machining approaches without needing to personally own day-to-day CAM programming.
• Hands-on experience supporting CNC process development, prove-out, troubleshooting, and production improvement on the shop floor.
• Ability to diagnose issues involving tool wear, chatter, dimensional variation, distortion, thermal effects, surface finish, fixture behavior, and other machining-related failure modes.
• Working knowledge of CAM systems such as NX CAM, hyperMILL, Mastercam, ESPRIT, Fusion, or similar.