Sr. 3D Process Engineer

Department: Research & Development

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: US-California-San Jose

Compensation: $135,200 - $185,900 / year

Align Technology’s 3D Printing Process team is seeking a Sr. 3D Process Engineer to join our San Jose, CA location. This in-person role involves hands-on, in-lab research and development focused on advancing additive manufacturing process control. The successful candidate will lead targeted R&D initiatives to solve fundamental process problems, serve as a subject matter expert in additive manufacturing, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to support regulatory submissions, process validation, and technology transfer activities.

• Independently operate new additive manufacturing equipment and post processing equipment.
• Perform material and product testing using standard and non-standard material testing equipment.
• Collect, maintain and organize data in accordance to internal standards and quality requirements.
• Participate, and lead select weekly and bi-weekly technical meetings with cross functional groups
• Present data, findings, and ideas to the process and cross-functional teams on a weekly basis
• Use statistical tools to analyze, interpret, and present experiment results.
• Be responsible for writing, maintaining, and transferring work instructions to manufacturing teams.
• Be responsible for writing, maintaining and supporting protocols for process and equipment qualifications and process transfer.
• Be responsible for writing work instructions for core Process R&D activities.
• Work closely with cross functional collaborators to support and to receive support on major project milestones.
• Serve as SME for design for additive manufacturing (DFAM) to support printing and post process development.
• Operate, collect and analyze data from polymer characterization equipment to support fundamental research in the area process-structure-property explorations.
• Apply your expertise in process-structure-property relationship exploration to study, and tune process to match desired performance and accuracy metrics.
• Use and develop methods to collect, process and analyze data from advanced metrology techniques like CT, CMM and similar equipment
• Be responsible for collection, processing and analysis of orthodontic performance data for exploring the relationship between process and performance.
• Collaborate with the manager to identify, plan, and assemble core team to support independent R&D topics. Independently design, setup and execute experiments to study process-structure-property relationships for polymer AM systems for the purpose of understanding/optimizing the manufacturing process.
• Lead and delegate tasks to Jr. team members and technicians supporting the R&D activities.
• Create, evaluate, support prototyping of equipment, jigs, fixture and tools necessary for manufacturing process internally or with external support.
• Maintain vendor relationships and be responsible for design review and release of custom equipment.
• Study and develop metrics to explore the process capability of end-to-end pilot manufacturing process for R&D products.
• Serve as lead for development of acceptance metrics, process performance criterion, and in-process monitoring criterion.
• Lead activities related to test method development and validation.
• Lead and support the planning, execution and documentation of experiment results and analysis for regulatory submissions.
• Serve as SME for internal and external audits related to process development and optimization.
• Provide the requirements for manufacturing software such as support generation, slicing, layout etc.
• Serve as a technical liaison for manufacturing software development, prototyping (coding, code editing), and testing plan.
• Support and participate in calibration, spirit committee, and safety programs.
• Foster collaboration with cross functional teams, support onboarding of Jr. engineers.
• Work in a fast-paced environment and meet critical deadlines
• Problem solve issues with attention to detail
• Actively coach, motivate, mentor and provide leadership to peers and Jr. engineers

• MS degree in mechanical or…