Sr. Supplier Development Engineer (Starlink)

About the position

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future with humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one without. Today, SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars. The Sr. Supplier Development Engineer for Starlink will play a crucial role in establishing a new type of supply chain for the Starlink products, requiring suppliers to provide premium quality with rapidly evolving designs at increasingly ambitious volumes. Candidates should possess comprehensive knowledge of NPI manufacturing and quality tools, along with a strong motivation to enable suppliers for success. This technical position requires practical experience in the area of specialty with materials, processes, and parts used in mechanical assemblies for high volume electronics manufacturing. The ideal candidate will have a broad understanding of these products and the capability to take on new challenges in unfamiliar areas to help enable our mission to Mars.

Responsibilities

• Act as the technical point of contact, solving emergent challenges at suppliers and mitigating risk to the manufacturing system by addressing high-impact manufacturing and quality challenges
• Conduct design for manufacturing (DFM) reviews to ensure manufacturability
• Provide leadership for New Product Introduction (NPI) at suppliers
• Identify, audit and onboard new suppliers; perform surveillance and diagnostic audits on incumbent suppliers
• Industrialize new materials and/or processes by collaborating with suppliers to implement the required capital improvements and developing their capability to scale-up these new technologies
• Collaborate with Design, Quality, and Manufacturing to determine the ideal performance specifications and supplier metrics
• Validate supplier corrective actions involving design and/or process changes to ensure they are robust, sustainable, and implemented for similar potential concerns across manufacturing lines and/or suppliers
• Lead containment activities, working with cross-functional counterparts on scope, path forward and ultimate resolution
• Demonstrate innovation, technical excellence, attention to detail, self-direction and courage
• Drive for results and customer satisfaction by collaborating with teams, leading projects and continuously driving improvement in the supply base

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in an engineering or a STEM discipline
• 5+ years of manufacturing, supply chain, or business project experience

Nice-to-haves

• Master's degree in engineering or business
• Experience with high volume manufacturing
• Ability to communicate and direct supplier activities at the management level
• Knowledge of quality processes - production part approval process (PPAP), advanced product quality planning (APQP), first article inspection reports (FAIR), etc
• Experience with quality systems (ISO 9000/TS/AS9100/NADCAP)
• Knowledge of statistical techniques and methods, e.g., design of experiments, Six Sigma, Statistical Process Control (SPC), etc
• Knowledge of Lean concepts
• Experience with sharing information and influencing others across organizational lines, internally and externally
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, ability to make presentations to suppliers, team members and management
• Experience with MRP or ERP systems