Production Operations Engineer (Dragon) at SpaceX
Hawthorne, CA, United States
SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of enabling human life on Mars.
PRODUCTION OPERATIONS ENGINEER (DRAGON)
The Dragon Production Operations Engineer will support efforts to guide and align Dragon manifest and mission decision based on customer requirements and production constraints. They will interface with Mission Management to understand the customers' needs while working with Production, Engineering, and Supply Chain to develop production plans with considerations for the rapidly changing manifest demand. They will ensure all internal planning targets are set, track progress of targeted and forecasted schedules, work with appropriate stakeholders to identify potential configuration issues, allocation discrepancies and evaluate impact of production/refurb delays against Dragon manifest goals, and drive necessary mitigating actions. This engineer will forge a strong partnership with other launch sites to determine the customer constraints and how to create a seamless flow of parts back and forth from SpaceX sites.
This role requires critical thinking and decision-making skills, the ability to see the big picture of the Dragon program while simultaneously diving into details, consistency, professionalism, and strong communication. One must interpret signals from across the company, understand critical path drivers, formulate data-driven recommendations, and get leadership buy-in for them.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Support the Dragon manifest by developing appropriate production plans with consensus from Production, Engineering, Supply Chain, Mission Management and executives
Drive scenario analysis around allocations and part planning to present options that optimize production schedule and customer needs
Understand the entire production system, processes, and capabilities and ensure their production needs are accurately reflected into the top-level master schedule plan
Coordinate efforts to align relevant parties of upcoming schedule, configuration, or hardware allocations changes
Drive automation and process improvements through various production scopes
Create dashboards/reports of synthesized data to report production trends and give detailed analysis
Conduct operations engineering at a strategic level by optimizing resources, schedules, and risk under uncertainty across SpaceX
Develop tools to analyze delivery, capacity, costs vs benefits, supply chain, and operations to guide executive decisions in anticipation of change
Work as part of inter-disciplinary and cross-functional teams to develop and manage production strategy, mitigate future production risks, and seize emerging opportunities to improve quality, output, safety, and cost
Identify operational challenges within the organization, lead problem formulation, determine root cause, and develop creative and effective solutions
Develop key performance measures, identify decision points and actions to optimize production to meet demand, and ensure measured parameters correlate with overall company objectives
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:
Bachelor's degree in engineering, manufacturing, business, computer science or supply chain
2+ years of experience in material planning, production planning, operations management, supply chain management, material cost control, master production scheduling, data science, or engineering
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:
Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office products including Word, Excel and PowerPoint
2+ years of practical experience in analysis and modeling of systems, including but not limited to use of Excel, SQL and/or Python/R
Ability to work in fast-paced, high stress environments
Strong communication and presenting skills
Skilled at taking in large quantities of information and presenting it in a clear and concise manner
MS Project or other scheduling experience is a plus
Technical background (not necessarily aerospace)
Fast learner who takes initiative in resolving system-level problems
Ability to work with limited supervision to develop and manage program plans and schedules
Experience as an industrial, operations, process or manufacturing engineer in a developmental manufacturing environment, including experience in aerospace production
Experience with Lean, six sigma, and related production principles
The ability to be diplomatically persuasive or assertive when necessary
Ability to work and communicate well with others in a team environment
Experience leading multi-disciplinary and cross-functional teams working on strategic problems
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:
ITAR REQUIREMENTS:
SpaceX is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with SpaceX is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.
Applicants wishing to view a copy of SpaceX's Affirmative Action Plan for veterans and individuals with disabilities, or applicants requiring reasonable accommodation to the application/interview process should notify the Human Resources Department at (310) 363-6000.
