Manufacturing Engineer

Foundational Industries · Bay Area · Full-Time

About Foundational

Foundational is building a network of AI-native, autonomous factories for modern contract manufacturing — reshoring critical supply chains so companies can produce high-quality products domestically, quickly, and at competitive cost. Recent breakthroughs in robotics and physical AI have shifted autonomous manufacturing from theoretical to deployable, and we're focused on operationalizing these capabilities at scale during a decisive decade for American industrial leadership.

WHO — Who Thrives Here

At Foundational, we're building with people who want to own something — to do work that matters, in an environment where what you ship is what counts.

The people who thrive here:

• Take ownership before they're asked. They see the gap and close it.

• Operate with a high degree of judgment. We move fast, and good judgment travels farther than a playbook.

• Communicate directly — concise, clear, and candid, especially when stakes are high.

• Hold a high bar for themselves first, then for everyone around them.

• Are genuinely energized by hard problems in physical, real-world environments. Energized — not just interested.

• Stay effective when things are ambiguous, changing, or under pressure. That's the job.

• This is a place for people who want to build something that has never existed before and leave a clear mark on it.

MISSION

Own the manufacturing processes that build Foundational’s products: define the routings, fixtures, work instructions, and line layout that take products from raw material through fabrication, finishing, and assembly at takt — and instrument every step with data from day one.

OUTCOMES — What Success Looks Like in 6–12 Months

We track results. Here's what we expect this person to own and deliver:

First 90 days — Complete process routings released for the active product line: every operation defined with machine time, labor time, and station assignment, validated against the production floor layout and takt targets. Fixture designs specified for the critical operations, with quality and repeatability built into the process rather than inspected in afterward.

First 6 months — Pilot line running: fixtures built and qualified, work instructions and operator training packages released at every station, first articles built to routing with time studies closing the gap between planned and actual work content. Bottleneck stations identified and countermeasures in place; in-process inspection points defined with Quality.

By 12 months — Line at rate with stable takt and documented OEE; process data — cycle times, yields, rework — flowing into Foundational’s MES and traceability platform; a cost-down pipeline (setup reduction, fixture consolidation, automation candidates) delivering measurable reduction in labor hours per unit against the baseline routing.

SKILLS

• 5+ years of manufacturing or process engineering in fabrication, welding, machining, or electromechanical assembly environments.

• Process routing and line design ownership: takt analysis, station balancing, labor and machine time estimation, and floor layout.

• Fixture design experience, including locating-scheme design and process repeatability for fabricated or assembled products.

• Hands-on fluency across core processes — cutting, forming, welding, finishing, assembly — and the DFM judgment to push design changes that simplify them.

• Work instruction, routing, and time study discipline; experience standing up documentation systems where none existed.

• Experience deploying or working within MES, SPC, or shop floor data collection systems; comfort treating process data as a first-class deliverable.

• Lean manufacturing toolkit applied in practice — value stream mapping, SMED, standard work — not just trained.

COMPETENCIES

These are the behavioral patterns that predict success here — in practice, under pressure.

Accountability — You own outcomes. If something's off track, you say so and fix it.

Bias for action — You ship. You iterate. You move toward the hard thing.

Clarity of communication — Direct and concise, especially when it counts.

Learning agility — You get up to speed fast in unfamiliar territory.

Resilience — You stay sharp when things are hard, ambiguous, or moving fast.

High standards — You raise the bar rather than match it — and hold yourself to it first.

Building from zero — You can stand up a manufacturing engineering function from scratch — routings, fixtures, work instructions, the line itself — and run it yourself until there’s a team to hand it off to.

Why Foundational

This is a filter as much as it is an invitation.

We're turning reindustrialization from a talking point into an operating reality. The work is hard, the environment is demanding, and the stakes are real. We compensate with base, bonus, and equity to reflect impact, responsibility, and results, with meaningful upside for the people who help build and scale this company.

For those aligned with the mission and motivated by execution at scale, Foundational offers the opportunity to help define one of the most consequential industrial transformations of the next decade.

Foundational Industries is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and applicants. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), age, disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Foundational complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment. We evaluate every candidate on what they can do and who they are.