Solar Cell Equipment Engineer (Starlink)

The role

You will own production equipment used to manufacture silicon heterojunction solar cells at massive scale. You will work with facilities and process engineering teams to install, qualify, maintain, and improve high-throughput equipment.

What you will do

• Install, qualify, maintain, and improve high-throughput equipment for heterojunction silicon solar cell manufacturing
• Drive equipment reliability and uptime to support large volume production
• Run experiments and analyze data to improve capacity and reduce variation
• Develop preventive and predictive maintenance strategies, spare parts programs, and tool matching protocols
• Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions on equipment-related issues
• Partner with Process Engineers to implement new process requirements
• Evaluate and select next-generation high-throughput equipment
• Work with vendors on equipment design improvements and custom solutions
• Establish equipment performance metrics and implement statistical process control
• Ensure equipment meets cleanroom, safety, and high-reliability manufacturing standards

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, materials science, or other technical discipline
• 2+ years of hands-on experience owning and maintaining production equipment in a high-volume semiconductor, solar manufacturing, or related environment
• Experience handling flammable, toxic, corrosive, and/or hazardous chemicals and gases safely
• Must be able to work extended hours and weekends as needed
• Ability to lift 25 lbs unassisted
• Ability to work in cleanroom and facility utility environments
• Ability to move between multiple production areas
• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally to vendor sites (up to 20%)

Nice to have

• 5+ years of hands-on experience owning and maintaining production equipment in a high-volume semiconductor or solar manufacturing environment
• Demonstrated success improving equipment uptime and reliability in a 24/7 high-volume production setting
• Experience with heterojunction (HJT) silicon solar cell manufacturing equipment
• Previous work at high-volume solar, semiconductor, or display manufacturing facilities (multi-GW or 300mm fab experience is a plus)
• Deep knowledge of tool architecture and subsystems for vacuum deposition, wet chemical processing, or electro-pneumatic robot and transfer module systems
• Experience with pyrophoric, toxic, and hazardous gas and chemical delivery, handling, and abatement systems
• Experience with predictive maintenance technologies and CMMS platforms
• Experience with PLC/SCADA control systems and instrumentation troubleshooting
• Experience scaling equipment from pilot to very high volume production
• Proficiency with statistical tools, failure analysis techniques, and reliability engineering principles

About the company

SpaceX is developing technologies to enable human life on Mars. Starlink aims to provide fast, reliable internet to remote locations using a large satellite constellation.