Senior/Staff Manufacturing Engineer, Advanced Processes

WHAT TO EXPECT Heron Power is a startup company building cutting-edge power electronics for the 21st-century grid. We aim to debottleneck the growth of electricity generation and consumption with scalable, innovative, and less costly hardware solutions, accelerating the electrification of everything. Our first goal is to build better converters (inverters & rectifiers) to connect large-scale renewables, storage, and loads to the grid. Heron’s leadership team is made up of seasoned veterans who have designed and shipped gigawatts of power conversion products over the past decade. We understand that no one individual knows everything. We will all learn a lot together and from each other. We strive to build a collaborative, enriching environment conducive to personal, technical, and career growth. You can expect to work in a dynamic and collaborative environment, driven by first principles engineering, solving difficult problems. JOB OVERVIEW As a Sr./Staff Manufacturing Engineer - Advanced Processes, you will be responsible for developing, testing, deploying and scaling high volume manufacturing for our power electronics assemblies. This role will be responsible for some of our most exciting and complex manufacturing technologies and will lead process and equipment development for advanced automation/robotics, chemical handling systems associated with thermal interface materials and thermal gap fillers, plastics/metals assembly, and surface treatments. You will work closely with product, mechanical and electrical design teams early and often through DFM, design processes from a first principles approach and close the feedback loop to ensure both the product and the lines that make it are robust. You will collaborate closely with external suppliers and equipment partners to land scalable, reliable and highly repeatable equipment lines and processes, owning them from concept to production ramp. HOW YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE - Lead line development across multiple process and equipment technologies through concept, build and into ramp. - Develop and scale processes for thermal interface materials, thermal gap fillers, pottants, and associated dispense, conveyance, and handling systems. - Develop surface treatment processes for plastics and metals (including plasma/corona treatment, solvent/chemical cleaning, and adhesion preparation. - Specify and qualify advanced joining processes such as ultrasonic welding, laser welding/brazing, vibration welding, and more. - Lead development with equipment suppliers and OEMs from equipment concept and process design phase all the way through FAT/SAT, commissioning, validation and handoffs for lab, pilot and mass production applications. - Specify, commission and optimize production-scale manufacturing equipment for high-speed assembly lines. - Implement electrical and other in-line inspection systems to monitor and/or control quality of your processes and equipment along with their validation workflows. - Characterize material behavior and define robust process windows via DoE’s. - Apply PFMEA, control plans, SPC methodology and structured problem solving to maintain world class process capability. - Support automation integration with robots, conveyors and inline QA. WHAT YOU WILL BRING We have a short list of must-have requirements. We prioritize a strong grip on first principles, hands-on skills, and a sense of initiative. Domain-specific knowledge and experience will help determine the career level for each hire. - Bachelor’s degree in Manufacturing/Industrial/Mechanical/Electrical/Chemical Engineering. - 7+ years of experience in industrial automation, chemical handling, electromechanical assembly or related high-volume manufacturing processes. - Understanding of creepage/clearance, sealing of enclosures, adhesives and machine interfaces. - Ability to characterize and optimize key process variables for chemical handling systems and translate those variables into clear equipment design requiremen