Lead Manufacturing Engineer

The role

The Lead Manufacturing Engineer will design, develop and optimize manufacturing processes and production lines for desalination systems. This role involves leading DFM/DFA initiatives and owning continuous improvement efforts in a hardware startup environment.

What you will do

• Design, develop and optimize manufacturing processes and production lines for desalination systems.
• Lead DFM/DFA initiatives including tooling, fixtures, robot end-effectors, conveyors, automation programming, and control systems.
• Work cross functionally to select equipment, define cycle-times, yield targets, cost-per-unit, and quality metrics.
• Develop work instructions, process flows, and layout designs.
• Implement and validate manufacturing methods for new systems.
• Own continuous improvement efforts to reduce cost, increase throughput, and improve reliability and uptime.
• Collaborate with procurement, quality, test, integration teams and external vendors/suppliers.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s in Engineering (Mechanical, Manufacturing, Industrial or equivalent).
• 2+ years as a project lead
• Strong CAD (SolidWorks / other) experience and familiarity with manufacturing automation, tooling & fixture design.
• Hands on mindset: comfortable designing the process and also working with operators & equipment to validate and refine.
• Strong problem solving skills.
• Ability to operate in ambiguous/higher growth environment.
• Clear communicator across teams.
• Hands on work on development hardware.
• Long periods of standing, crouching, walking.
• Lifting up to 50 lbs.
• Wear required PPE (safety glasses, gloves, safety shoes) in production areas.

Nice to have

• Experience in consumer hardware production, or systems with high-volume manufacturing.
• Knowledge of pumps, valves, pressure vessels, fluid systems or broadly mechanical-hardware manufacturing.
• Experience with automation programming, conveyors, robotics, fluid/pressure equipment.
• Familiarity with Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, statistical process control (SPC).
• Experience in a hardware startup or mission-driven organization.

Benefits

• Work on high-impact problems with global relevance
• Help scale breakthrough technology in water security and climate resilience
• Early ownership in a high-growth, engineering-led startup
• Join a tight-knit, mission-driven team in a fast-paced environment
• Build long-term career equity as we grow
• Required personal protective equipment (PPE), including safety shoes, will be provided or reimbursed by Vital Lyfe.

About the company

Vital Lyfe is a tech company redefining water autonomy through innovation, creating a new category of personal water making technology built to scale where infrastructure can’t.