What are the responsibilities and job description for the Principal Manufacturing Engineer position at MAV Unlimited, Inc.?
Overview
This is a highly technical, highly hands-on role at the intersection of additive manufacturing, mechanical engineering, optics, materials science, and computational manufacturing. You will take significant responsibility for designing, building, testing, and improving MAV's next-generation volumetric manufacturing system. Preferred locations are Ithaca, Boston/Cambridge, or Oregon.
Responsibilities
- Help design and build what we believe will be the world's largest volumetric additive manufacturing system.
- Take ownership of major elements of the machine, from concept and design through fabrication, assembly, testing, and iteration.
- Develop and optimize volumetric printing processes, including materials, exposure parameters, thermal management, and print strategies.
- Work with computational image sets used in volumetric manufacturing, including 3D models, projections, and tomograms.
- Design and execute experiments to improve print speed, accuracy, repeatability, material performance, and optical quality.
- Diagnose problems across mechanical, optical, materials, software, and process domains and then solve them.
- Translate customer requirements into printable components and manufacturing processes.
- Help transition MAV's technology from an advanced R&D platform into a reliable manufacturing system.
- Operate the system to manufacture precision components.
- Work directly with MAV's founders, engineers, academic collaborators, customers, and government partners.
- Contribute wherever needed. As an early member of a startup, the boundaries of the job will be intentionally broad.
What we're looking for
- A record of building things -- prototypes, products, machines, experimental apparatus, or other technically challenging projects.
- Familiarity with additive manufacturing processes and their underlying physics.
- Experience with polymers, photopolymers, resins, materials science, or materials characterization.
- Comfort working with CAD, 3D models, digital manufacturing files, image processing, or tomographic data.
- Strong experimental instincts and the ability to design tests, interpret results, and iterate quickly.
- Ability to move comfortably between high-level technical thinking and detailed hands-on execution.
- A willingness to tackle problems outside your formal area of expertise and learn quickly.
- A strong work ethic and enthusiasm for the pace, responsibility, and ambiguity of an early-stage technology company.
- Because this role will involve work on restricted U.S. government and defense programs, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or U.S. lawful permanent resident (green card holder).
The Company
MAV Unlimited believes in a world where products are made quickly, efficiently and locally; where things are made for the individual, not the masses; where overproduction is eliminated, because everything is made on demand. MAV Unlimited was founded by Professor Robert Shepherd (Cornell), Professor TJ Wallin (MIT), and Aaron Pempel (Harvard Business School). We're pioneering a technology called Large Format Volumetric Manufacturing -- more than 50x faster than the next fastest commercial additive system. If fully realized, we believe this technology will be the unlock to a more efficient way of making wide range of products.