Senior Manufacturing Engineer, Structural Bonding

About the role

Why Castelion, Why Now Castelion is moving incredibly fast to develop and deliver advanced defense systems at a time when execution matters more than ever. We believe focus, ownership, and excellence are decisive advantages - and we're building a world-class team to turn bold ideas into real capability. This is a rare opportunity to join at an early stage, where you'll have significant ownership, collaborate with exceptional teammates, and make a direct, measurable impact on our mission and the future of the company - regardless of your function. We are seeking a Senior Manufacturing Engineer with deep experience in structural bonding to develop, qualify, and scale bonded-joint manufacturing for Castelion’s solid rocket motors and related hypersonic hardware. This role focuses on liner-to-case bonds, insulator and composite interfaces, nozzle and closure bonds, metal-to-composite joints, and other structural adhesive applications used in motor assembly. You will own process definition, surface preparation, adhesive selection and application, cure control, inspection, and yield improvement while partnering with Design, Quality, Tooling & Automation, Production, and Site Operations. The objective is repeatable, high-reliability bonded structures that meet aerospace requirements from development builds through high-rate production.

Responsibilities

• Own manufacturing processes for structural bonding of SRM and related hardware, including liner/insulator-to-case bonds, composite-to-metal joints, nozzle/closure bonds, and bonded assembly interfaces.
• Develop and qualify surface-preparation, adhesive application, fixturing, cure, and inspection processes to achieve consistent bond-line quality and structural performance.
• Execute DFM/DFA, PFMEA, control plans, and statistical process control (SPC) for bonded assemblies; drive first-pass yield and cycle-time improvement.
• Define in-process inspection and NDE strategies for bond-line integrity (e.g., visual, ultrasonic, and other approved methods) and support disposition of bonding-related nonconformances.
• Design or specify bonding fixtures, dispensing methods, vacuum bagging or pressure-application approaches, and cure tooling in partnership with Tooling & Automation.
• Support new product introduction and design changes by providing producibility input on joint design, tolerances, adhesive selection, and assembly sequence.
• Lead root-cause analysis and corrective actions for disbonds, voids, porosity, contamination, incomplete cure, or related process escapes.
• Author and maintain work instructions,