Senior Applications and Automation Engineer

Senior Applications and Automation Engineer, Experimental Systems

On-Site · Allentown, PA · Seed Stage

About 4MP

At 4MP, we are building a new technological foundation for precision manufacturing. Our systems enable CNC machines to self-measure, self-correct, and continuously improve their performance - transforming conventional machine tools into autonomous precision systems.

Backed by a leading institutional investor and extensively vetted by recognized experts across industry and government laboratories, 4MP is at the beginning of a category-defining journey. We are transitioning from early development into building a visionary company that will redefine how precision manufacturing is done globally.

About the Role

You will own the experiments that the rest of the program is built on. 4MP develops through a staged test plan: a purpose-built bench rig where commanded motion supplies its own reference, then on-machine metrology on the CNC, then closed-loop correction on real parts.

This is a hands-on experimental engineering role on-site at our Allentown R&D facility, sitting between hardware and software. You interface sensors, motion stages, and machine controllers. You automate acquisition so that a campaign of tens of thousands of measurements runs without anyone clicking through it. You design and program the fixtures, artifacts, and test parts each experiment needs. And you reduce and interpret your own results, so the team learns what a run showed and what it cannot support. At this seed stage, you are the technical authority on how the program measures things and accountable for whether those measurements can be trusted.

What You Will Do

• Run the Test Campaigns: Execute the bench and on-machine test programs, run by run, in the order written, with the setup, the commanded steps, and any deviations recorded, so results from different days and units can be pooled.
• Interface Machines and Instruments: Bring optical sensors, stages, rotary axes, environmental logging, and machine controllers onto one synchronized, timestamped acquisition chain, working from interface control documents and APIs rather than vendor GUIs.
• Automate the Acquisition: Replace manual data collection with scripted campaigns, so sample size is set by what the experiment needs rather than by how many runs a person can click through in a day.
• Design the Fixtures and Specimens: Model and detail the fixtures, mounts, targets, and test parts required for each experiment in CAD.
• Work on the Machine:  Set up and mount the sensor and oversee data acquisition during experimental runs together with a CNC expert.
• Design Experiments That Answer Something: Turn an open question into a run plan with the sampling, repeats, ordering, and controls that separate a real effect from noise, and say plainly what a given plan cannot resolve.
• Analyze Your Own Data: Reduce, fit, plot, and interpret results in Python; quantify repeatability, drift, and residual structure; and report every figure with its conditions and its sample size.
• Keep the Record Honest: Configuration, commanded and encoder positions, timestamps, and operator travel with the data. A noted deviation keeps a run usable; a silent one does not, and you are the one who enforces that.
• Build the Capability: Specify, install, and commission equipment, instrumentation, and shop procedures, and get the facility to a state where a full test cycle takes hours rather than weeks.
• Work Across the Team: Sit between the metrology, AI, geometry, and software engineers. Your data is what they calibrate, train, and validate against, and their open questions are what your next campaign is built to close.

What We Require

• 5+ Years of Hands-On Experimental Engineering: Substantial work in metrology, test engineering, automation, or precision systems development, where you owned the setup and the data rather than receiving them.
• Machine and Instrument Interfacing: Practical experience getting sensors, stages, controllers, or instruments to talk to one another and produce synchronized data you could stand behind.
• Automation in Software: You have automated a measurement or test process end-to-end and made it sufficiently repeatable for someone else to run without you.
• Sensing and Measurement Literacy: Comfort with sensor configuration, calibration, noise, drift, and the difference between repeatability and trueness, including when a number is not comparable across conditions.
• CNC Fluency: A strong Plus: You can set up and run a machine tool, read a process, and work with machinists and programmers as a peer rather than through a request queue.
• CAD Competence: Designing fixtures, specimens, and mounts in a modern CAD system.
• Experimental Discipline: Design of experiments, controls, ordering, and sample size, with the instinct to record what was done rather than what was planned.
• Python and Data Handling: A strong plus:  Strong enough Python to script acquisition, wrangle measurement data, and produce your own analysis, in a shared and version-controlled codebase.
• Data Science Foundation: Working knowledge of statistics, uncertainty, and model fitting, enough to distinguish a genuine result from an artifact of the method.
• Educational Foundation: Degree in Mechanical, Manufacturing, Mechatronics, or Electrical Engineering, Physics, or Applied Mathematics - or equivalent demonstrated work.
• On Site in Allentown: This role is at the hardware, at our Allentown, PA facility. It is not a hybrid or remote position.

What Will Set You Apart

• Dimensional and Optical Metrology: Laser triangulation or structured light scanning, coordinate metrology, interferometry, or artifact-based calibration practice.
• Precision Motion Systems: Air bearings, rotary tables, encoders, homing and repeatability behavior, and error motion characterization.
• Machine Tool Integration: On-machine probing, macro programming, post-processor behavior, G-code at the block level, or machine data interfaces such as MTConnect or OPC UA.
• Point Cloud and Geometry Work: Handling scan data, registration, surface fitting, and comparison against CAD.
• Simulation and Model Validation: Building a model of a measurement setup and scoring it against real data, rather than trusting it because it renders.
• Data Science Depth: Signal processing, uncertainty propagation, or applied machine learning on physical measurement data.
• Instrumentation and Electronics: Data acquisition, thermal and environmental logging, wiring, and the ability to make bench work without waiting on anyone.
• Lab and Shop Build-Out: Commissioning equipment, writing procedures, and standing up a working capability from an empty room.
• Manufacturing Process Knowledge: Machining physics such as tool deflection, thermal error, fixturing, and surface finish, and how each shows up in a measurement.
• Startup Experience: Comfort building in an agile, ambiguous environment where the playbook does not exist yet and the first version has to work.

This is a hands-on, on-site role. The work happens at the rig and at the machine, in Allentown. Applicants looking for a remote or primarily analytical position, or expecting experiments to be specified by others and executed by a technician, will not be considered.

Applicants whose experience is limited to CAD drafting, production machine operation, or inspection against a fixed procedure, without a track record of designing experiments, automating acquisition, and analyzing the results, will not be considered. The right candidate is credible at both ends of the job: wiring a sensor and fixturing a part in the morning, and defending a statistic and its sample size in the afternoon.

• Please do not email resumes or applications directly. We review candidates exclusively through this job posting.