Manufacturing Engineer

Key Responsibilities

• Lead hands-on process improvement efforts to improve safety, quality, throughput, delivery, and cost across manufacturing operations.
• Develop and refine manufacturing processes that deliver consistent, compliant product with high yield and low variability.
• Drive day-to-day process stability through production troubleshooting, root cause analysis of downtime and defects, line balancing, takt time optimization, and bottleneck elimination.
• Lead structured continuous improvement initiatives, including 5S, Kaizen events, waste reduction, cycle time reduction, and labor productivity improvements.
• Design and implement equipment, tooling, and automation solutions that enable productivity gains, reduce labor time, and improve process repeatability.
• Enable new product introduction and scaling by developing production processes, implementing DFM improvements, supporting pilot builds and ramp-ups, and planning capacity for growth.
• Optimize factory layouts and material flow to improve work center performance across log yard, kilns, production lines, and finished goods packaging, loading, and shipping.
• Build and maintain production performance metrics to prioritize improvement work and enable data-driven operational decision making.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Manufacturing, or closely related engineering discipline from an accredited university.
• 2+ years of hands-on experience in a manufacturing environment, with direct ownership of engineering or process improvement projects.
• Demonstrated ability to diagnose and solve mechanical or process problems on the production floor, not just support others who did.
• Experience in heavy industrial, automotive, or similarly demanding manufacturing environments.
• Background in aerospace, medical devices, or consumer electronics is considered but requires demonstrated transferability to heavy industrial operations.
• Strong problem-solving instincts and comfort working directly on heavy equipment and industrial machinery.
• This is a hands-on individual contributor role with no direct reports. Candidates whose recent experience has shifted primarily toward management, CI leadership, or operations management should be prepared to discuss their return to floor-level engineering.

Preferred Skills

• Experience in wood products, forestry, or heavy industrial manufacturing (strongest differentiator).
• Working knowledge of Lean manufacturing principles, continuous improvement, and standard work.
• Experience with statistical process control, process capability, or data-driven manufacturing approaches.
• Experience standing up or launching a new production line or process from scratch.
• Comfort spending significant time on the factory floor and collaborating across engineering, operations, and maintenance.
• Ability to independently own projects end-to-end in a fast-paced, startup environment where priorities shift and resources are lean.