Technical lead, Manufacturing & Integration (engineering operations)

Job Description

Job Description

The Technical Manufacturing Manager leads a small team of engineering technicians responsible for building, integrating, testing, and troubleshooting low-volume, high-mix scientific hardware. This person is accountable for the technical quality and functional performance of manufacturing output, the capability and development of the technician team, and the successful transfer of new and custom systems from development into controlled execution. 

The successful candidate will bring a strong experimental-physics foundation and substantial hands-on experience with lasers, spectroscopy, ultrahigh vacuum, precision optical systems, or comparable physics-based hardware. They must understand why the product works - not only how it is assembled - and use that understanding to evaluate requirements, identify technical risk, interpret test results, and lead effective troubleshooting. 

Role distinction: This is not primarily a production planning, scheduling, or material-control position. In partnership with Production Management, Manufacturing Engineering, Design Engineering, Systems Engineering, and Quality, this role owns the technical execution and quality of what the technician team builds. 

Primary Accountabilities 

Lead and Develop the Technician Team 

• Directly manage a small team of manufacturing technicians performing assembly, integration, alignment, test, inspection, rework, and troubleshooting activities. 

• Set clear expectations for workmanship, technical rigor, documentation, safety, ownership, and professional conduct; review work and reinforce those standards consistently. 

• Develop technician capability through structured training, qualification, coaching, and increasingly complex assignments. 

• Evaluate individual and team performance, provide timely feedback, and build development plans aligned with both employee growth and organizational need. 

Own the Technical Quality of Manufacturing Output 

• Maintain technical oversight of active builds and ensure that released requirements, drawings, work instructions, test procedures, and acceptance criteria are understood and executed correctly. 

• Assess whether build and test results demonstrate the intended product behavior, not merely completion of documented steps. 

• Provide or coordinate technical acceptance within established design-authority, configuration-control, and quality processes; stop or escalate work when requirements or results are unclear. 

• Differentiate among workmanship defects, process variation, test-system problems, component failures, and underlying design limitations, and direct the appropriate response. 

Lead Integration, Test, and Troubleshooting 

• Provide hands-on technical leadership during system assembly, optical alignment, integration, calibration, verification, and failure investigation. 

• Use physics-based reasoning, data analysis, and structured root-cause methods to resolve problems spanning optics, lasers, electronics, vacuum, mechanics, controls, and software interfaces. 

• Guide technicians through disciplined troubleshooting rather than relying on trial-and-error adjustment or undocumented expert knowledge. 

• Partner with responsible engineers to disposition nonconformances, define corrective actions, and determine when design or process changes are required. 

Support Product and Custom-System Transition 

• Represent manufacturing early in requirements definition, design reviews, verification planning, and transition-readiness decisions. 

• Evaluate whether requirements are measurable, designs are buildable and serviceable, alignment and calibration approaches are repeatable, and verification methods reflect the intended physical performance. 

• Identify configuration-specific risks in low-volume or custom builds and ensure they are resolved or explicitly accepted before execution. 

• Work with Design Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering to convert development knowledge into controlled build records, tooling, training, and test methods, and feed manufacturing results back into product and process improvement. 

Strengthen Manufacturing Execution 

• Partner with Production Management on priorities and delivery commitments by providing credible estimates of technical complexity, readiness, risk, and required skill mix. 

• Support Manufacturing Engineering and Quality in developing controlled processes, qualification methods, failure-review practices, and objective evidence of conformance. 

• Promote configuration discipline and use as-built, rework, nonconformance, yield, and test data to identify recurring technical problems and drive corrective action. 

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or higher in physics, applied physics, optical engineering, or a closely related discipline with a strong experimental-physics foundation. 

• Typically seven or more years of relevant professional experience, or four or more years with an advanced degree, building, integrating, testing, and troubleshooting complex scientific or electro-optical systems, including substantial hands-on work with lasers, spectroscopy, precision optics, or comparable instrumentation. 

• Demonstrated ability to interpret physical behavior from test data and lead root-cause investigations across product, process, test, component, and workmanship causes. 

• Experience leading and developing technicians, technologists, laboratory staff, or other hands-on technical personnel; formal people-management experience is strongly preferred. 

• Experience transitioning laboratory, prototype, or custom systems into documented and repeatable build-and-test execution. 

• Ability to communicate technical intent clearly to both hands-on staff and engineers and to make sound decisions with incomplete information. 

• Comfort working directly on the manufacturing floor and in laboratory environments while balancing immediate execution with longer-term capability development. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Master's degree or PhD in physics, applied physics, optical engineering, or a related experimental discipline. 

• Experience with atomic, molecular, and optical physics; quantum systems; laser frequency control; spectroscopy; vacuum systems; or precision metrology. 

• Experience in low-volume, high-mix manufacturing of scientific instruments, aerospace electro-optical systems, semiconductor equipment, medical instrumentation, or similarly complex hardware. 

• Experience with formal design reviews, requirements and verification management, configuration control, nonconformance review, and ISO 9001, AS9100, or a comparable quality-management system. 

• Experience developing technical training, qualification, or certification programs for technicians. 

Work Environment and Additional Requirements 

• This is a primarily on-site role supporting hands-on manufacturing, integration, and laboratory work. 

• Work may take place in manufacturing areas, optical laboratories, cleanrooms, and controlled-access environments and may require use of appropriate personal protective equipment. 

• Occasional support outside standard working hours may be required for critical integration, test, or delivery activities. [Insert approved travel, physical-requirement, export-control, and security-clearance language as applicable.] 

Benefits

• Salary Range: per year 160000-165000
• 100% company-paid medical, dental, vision, short/long-term disability
• Employer-funded Health Savings Account
• Unlimited PTO
• 401(k) match
• Company-paid Life and AD&D Insurance
• Flexible Savings Account
• Paid FMLA, Maternity/Paternity Leave
• Employee Assistance Program
• Student Loan Repayment 
• Equity Program

Notice to Recruitment Agencies:

Infleqtion does not accept unsolicited resumes from agencies. Infleqtion is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.