Senior/Staff Tooling Engineer
Anduril Industries · Santa Ana, CA
- Level
- Senior
- Team
- Manufacturing
- Travel
- 50%
- Experience asked
- 10+ years
- Industry
- Aerospace & defense
- Posted
- 30+ days ago
The role in 30 seconds
A senior manufacturing role at Anduril Industries (aerospace & defense) in Santa Ana, CA. You will be developing tooling, equipment, and layouts to support manufacturing processes, the production system, movement simulations and digital twins of the production environment in order to drive to efficient, rapid, on-time production and start-up of.
- They ask for
- 10+ years
- Tools it names
- Lean, Robotics, Automation, Welding, Tooling
- Day to day
- about 50% travel
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
From the plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026
Manufacturing Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $114k–$167k.
Median of the low and high ends of 117 live postings that list pay, out of 320 manufacturing engineer openings in California, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.
California plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →
How this role compares
Against 319 other live manufacturing postings in California.
- Base pay
- Not listed in this posting
- Experience asked
- More than usual (10+ vs 5+)
Typical $111k–$157k, from 105 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- ✓ Tooling 53%
- New product launch 51%
- Root cause 40%
- ✓ Automation 35%
- Machining 29%
- CATIA / NX 29%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
At a glance
Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.
How to get in at this plant
Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.
- 1
Pick 2–3 people on the Manufacturing team at Anduril Industries
We found 2 people at this company and state: 2 in this kind of role. Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. See them ↓
- 2
Send a short, curious note
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Write to Kevin → (free) - 3
Turn a reply into a short call
Questions worth asking about this team:
- What does a normal week look like on your team?
- Is the work mostly new product launches or sustaining existing lines?
- How much time do you spend on the floor versus at a desk?
- The posting says about 50% travel. Between which sites?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
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If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.
- 5
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One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
This plant: Anduril Industries in Santa Ana
33 other open roles at this site · 2 people we found in manufacturing roles at Anduril Industries.
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- Field Operations Engineer, Deployment Handling · Production
- Quality Technician, Maritime Production · Quality · Technician
- Industrial Engineer, Maritime Manufacturing · Industrial
- Production Operations Manager, Maritime Manufacturing · Production · Manager
- Senior Quality Specialist - Core Tech · Quality · Technician
Full description from Anduril IndustriesAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
requirements
across programs and products.
- ✓Support tooling and equipment integration, commissioning, and certification in prototype and production development
- ✓Develop, review, and validate tooling and equipment concepts to meet performance
requirements
- ✓Team with manufacturing technology, facilities, and suppliers to create, source, and assess potential equipment and tooling to solve for production needs
- ✓Be on the floor communicating and integrating with fellow engineers and manufacturing personnel to perpetuate a cohesive mission-oriented culture
- ✓Drive collaboration with manufacturing technology, product design, manufacturing engineering, operations, facilities and construction, environmental safety & health, and finance to deliver creative and effective production system designs, as well as external vendors supporting the design, construction, and commissioning of new facilities
Required qualifications
- ✓10+ years of experience as a designer and developer of tooling, equipment and processes for manufacturing technology development, simulation modeling, digital thread development and/or production/process engineering
- ✓Technology development and implementation experience in equipment and tooling for large scale manufacturing
- ✓Ability to work hands-on in a manufacturing environment, next to operations and manufacturing engineering to understand and optimize the production system
- ✓Ability to travel up to 50% of the time
- ✓Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance
Preferred qualifications
- ✓Experience designing, manufacturing, procuring, installing, and maintaining tooling, fixturing, and manufacturing equipment and tooling
- ✓Process improvement, including justification of return on investment for process or operational changes
- ✓Application of lean manufacturing and linear flow principles in a production environment
- ✓Automation development for manufacturing processes in assembly, integration, test, and finishing operations
- ✓Design and construction of facilities, tooling, fixturing and equipment for large scale production systems
$147,000 — $243,000 USD
Benefits
At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits .
Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams
Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.
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Show full description ↓Show less ↑
Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.
About the team
Anduril’s Manufacturing Technology, Maritime Team is seeking a Staff/Senior Tooling and Equipment Design Engineer to join our team in Costa Mesa, CA. The Maritime Manufacturing Technology Team is responsible for rapidly developing and implementing manufacturing technologies and processes for cutting-edge defense hardware, including deployable static and moving surface, undersea and sea to air vehicles and scaling these products in our new manufacturing facilities.
About the job
As a Tooling and Equipment Design Engineer, you will be developing tooling, equipment, and layouts to support manufacturing processes, the production system, movement simulations and digital twins of the production environment in order to drive to efficient, rapid, on-time production and start-up of the new production facilities for maritime vehicles. The right person for this role has designed tooling and equipment solutions enabling production systems and manufacturing models of the work environment for a variety of product lines, groups, or businesses and integrated with both internal and external customers. If you are someone who wants to develop innovative, adaptive, flexible, creative approaches to manufacturing production systems and develop unified solutions for lots of stakeholders then this role is for you.
What you’ll do
- •Design tooling and equipment that integrates with factory manufacturing equipment, NC machinery, and robotic welding equipment to enable processing systems for supporting factory development and the future production system. You will utilize computer aided design, simulation, and computer graphics to enable lean manufacturing principles, integrated metrology and visual management, including technologies, tools and processes to improve production flow while enhancing product performance, space allocation and resource