Manufacturing Engineering Director ( Electronics)

Brightmachines San Francisco, California 36 days ago

engineering

RETHINK MANUFACTURING

The only way to ignite change is to build the best team. At Bright Machines®, we’re innovators and experts in our craft who have joined together to create a new category of manufacturing that will help transform the industry. We believe software and data are the answer, thoughtfully applied to solve our customers’ unique challenges. Through intelligent automation, we give factories newfound flexibility, scalability, and resilience. We deliver products to meet the demands of today while building a platform to take advantage of what comes next.

Working with us means you’ll have the opportunity to make lasting, impactful changes for our company and our customers. If you’re ready to apply your exceptional skills to create the factory of the future, we’d love to speak with you.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Bright Machines is on a mission to transform how electronics are made—bringing intelligence, scalability, and flexibility to the factory floor. We combine the best of automation, machine learning, and software to modernize manufacturing from the ground up.

We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Engineering Director to lead all manufacturing engineering functions at a modern electronics manufacturing facility specializing in server assembly, box build, and rack-level integration and testing. This role will own cross-functional engineering activities across Product Engineering, Test Development, Manufacturing Engineering, New Product Introduction (NPI), Design Engineering, Equipment Maintenance to drive operational excellence, scalability, and innovation.

This is a foundational leadership role in a newly developed flagship manufacturing site—offering a unique opportunity to build and shape the engineering organization as part of a broader initiative to create a next-generation model factory.

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING

Leadership & Strategy

Establish, lead, and scale a multi-disciplinary engineering team supporting full product lifecycle and factory operations

Lead and mentor engineering teams across product, test, manufacturing, and maintenance functions.

Develop and implement the site’s engineering strategy to support production, innovation, quality, and scalability goals

Drive a culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and technical excellence

Serve as the primary technical authority for engineering decisions on site.

Manufacturing & Process Engineering

Own process design, optimization, and control for servers and rack level assembly/test

Implement lean manufacturing principles, PFMEA, continuous improvement initiatives and standardization

Oversee equipment selection, layout planning, and capacity modeling

New Product Introduction (NPI)

Manage site-level industrialization of new products: from engineering builds to full ramp.

Coordinate engineering readiness (tooling, process, test, training) for each phase gate.

Interface with customer engineering teams and Program Management on schedules and deliverables.

Product & Design Engineering

Partner with OEMs/customers and internal teams to ensure manufacturability (DfM/DfT/DFAA), serviceability, and cost-optimization of server and rack-level products

Drive closed-loop feedback from manufacturing and test data back into product design.

Test Development & Automation

Lead development and deployment of server-level and rack-level test systems (functional, burn-in, stress, and diagnostics).

Ensure traceability, yield monitoring, and root-cause analysis systems are robust and scalable.

Support the transition to automated test platforms and data-driven quality systems.

Equipment Maintenance

Implement preventive and predictive maintenance systems across all key production and test assets

Ensure uptime, calibration, and health monitoring of critical production and test equipment including automation solutions

Factory Automation & Innovation

Identify opportunities for production automation and digital transformation across production lines

Collaborate with internal R&D and Product teams to evaluate, pilot, and scale automation solutions—robotics, autonomous material movement, vision systems, and data-driven process controls

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Collaborate with RnD, Product, Production, Quality, Supply Chain, Program Management to drive operational excellence.

Represent engineering in customer audits, technical reviews, and executive briefings

WHAT WE WANT TO SEE

Bachelor’s or master’s degree in electrical engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or related field.

10+ years of engineering leadership experience in electronics manufacturing, preferably servers or data center infrastructure.

Proven track record managing teams in box build, system assembly, and rack-level testing environments.

Strong background in test engineering (ICT, functional, burn-in) and process validation.

Experience with NPI processes, customer collaboration, and high-mix/low-volume operations.

Familiarity with MES, SPC, traceability tools, lean/Six Sigma, and smart factory systems.

Excellent communication, leadership, and organizational skills.

IT WOULD BE GREAT IF YOU HAD

Experience working in CM, OEM, ODM manufacturing facilities

Exposure to liquid-cooling, high-power rack systems, or edge compute infrastructure.

Knowledge of ISO, IPC, and industry compliance standards for electronics manufacturing.

BE EMPOWERED TO CHANGE AN INDUSTRY

Bright Machines is a next-generation, AI-enabled manufacturer focused on data center infrastructure assembly operations. Bright Machines uses its proprietary AI-based robotics and software to assemble AI infrastructure hardware products (i.e., data center servers) for hyperscalers and leading Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). With its new AI factory, Bright Machines addresses increasing market demands for computing power due to the surge of AI and the U.S. national mandate to reshore manufacturing by building data center infrastructure at scale with higher quality and shorter time-to-market.

Bright Machines is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with an integration center in Guadalajara, Mexico. The company has been recognized as one of Forbes’ AI 50, awarded “Best AI-based Solution for Manufacturing” by AI Breakthrough, named a “Technology Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum, and highlighted by several other leading technology and innovation organizations.