Manufacturing Engineer

TILT Autonomy, Inc. — Annapolis, MD Full-Time | $95,000–$145,000 DOE

About TILT

TILT Autonomy designs and builds the autonomy that runs uncrewed aircraft and boats — the boards, the firmware on them, and the ground software crews command them from. We do all of it in house, out of our shop in Annapolis. What we build is out in the field, and the people using it are not forgiving.

We're now scaling into rate production through contract manufacturers running parallel lines, with a hard target on labor hours per vehicle. That is the job below.

The Role

You own the answer to one question: can somebody else build our hardware without us standing next to them?

Right now the honest answer is "not yet." Our builds carry too much tribal knowledge, too much hand fabrication, and too many steps that only work because the person doing them also designed the thing. At prototype volumes that is survivable. At rate, across multiple contract manufacturers, it is fatal.

You'll take our boat control modules, navigation boards, wire harnesses and enclosures and turn them into a package a CM can build to — drawings, work instructions, fixtures, and acceptance criteria clear enough that the first article comes back right. Then you'll qualify the shops that build them and stay close enough to catch drift early.

This is a small company, so the scope is wide and the feedback is immediate. You'll be on the floor in Annapolis and on the phone with a shop in Pennsylvania in the same afternoon.

What You'll Own

Design for manufacturing - Work with our EEs and MEs during design, not after it — drive DFM and DFA into the hardware while changing it is still cheap - Find the parts and steps that will not survive rate production, and get them changed

Make it repeatable - Write the work instructions, travelers, and assembly guides the floor and our CMs build from - Design the fixtures and poka-yoke that make the wrong build physically hard - Define acceptance criteria and first-article requirements with the quality side

Qualify and manage the shops - Source and qualify contract manufacturers, harness shops, and machine shops - Run first-article inspection and resolve what comes back wrong - Own the engineering change process as it reaches the floor and the vendors

Make it measurable - Track labor hours per vehicle, yield, scrap and rework, and drive them down - Lead root cause on nonconformances instead of working around them

What We're Looking For

Must have: - 5+ years of hands-on manufacturing engineering in aerospace, defense, complex electronics, or another precision hardware environment - You have taken a product from prototype into rate production, and can describe what broke on the way - Fluent in engineering drawings and GD&T - Experience writing the work instructions someone else actually built from - Comfortable owning a vendor relationship, not just a drawing package - U.S. citizenship or permanent residency

Strongly preferred: - Contract manufacturer qualification and management - PCBA and cable harness manufacturing; IPC standards - Lean or Six Sigma in practice, not just on a certificate - Fixture and test-stand design; CAD (SolidWorks or similar) - Root cause and corrective action on real production failures

Nice to have: - Marine, UAS, or other uncrewed systems - AS9100 or ISO 9001 environments - ERP/PLM/MES experience, or the scar tissue from not having one - Active security clearance

Why TILT

• This role is the constraint. Our rate-production plan does not work without it. You will not be optimizing someone else's line — you are deciding what the line is.
• Short path from decision to result. No committee between you and the change.
• Real hardware, real deployments. What you make manufacturable ends up on Navy boats.
• Sustainable pace. We work hard and build for the long haul.
• Benefits. ICHRA health benefit, 401(k), and 31 days of paid time off (16 holidays + 15 discretionary + 5 sick days).

Location & Schedule

On-site in Annapolis, MD. This is a hands-on role — the hardware, the floor, and the vendors are all physical. Expect periodic travel to contract manufacturers.