Vice President, Matter Compiler Engineering
Atomic Machines · Emeryville or Santa Clara, CA
- Level
- Director+
- Team
- Manufacturing
- Degree
- Required
- Experience asked
- 15+ years
- Industry
- Industrial
- Posted
- 30+ days ago
The role in 30 seconds
A director-level manufacturing role at Atomic Machines (industrial) in Emeryville or Santa Clara, CA.
- They ask for
- 15+ years · degree required
- Tools it names
- Root cause, FMEA, CAPA, GD&T, DOE, Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ)
Read from the posting. The full description is below.
From the plant jobs report · week of November 2, 2026
Manufacturing Engineer roles in California: typical posted base $111k–$173k.
Median of the low and high ends of 165 live postings that list pay, out of 436 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 435 other live manufacturing postings in California.
- Base pay
- Not listed in this posting
- Experience asked
- More than usual (15+ vs 5+)
Typical $109k–$159k, from 144 postings that list pay.
Similar roles usually ask 5+ years.
Skills these teams ask for most
- ✓ Tooling 50%
- ✓ New product launch 44%
- ✓ Root cause 37%
- ✓ Automation 35%
- Machining 27%
- CATIA / NX 26%
✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.
Stands out: this posting asks for CAPA, DOE, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with 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 Atomic Machines
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
One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.
Write to Paul → (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?
- How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
- 4
Apply with someone vouching for you
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
Bring proof to the interview
One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.
This plant: Atomic Machines in Emeryville or Santa Clara
No other open roles at this site right now · 2 people we found in manufacturing roles at Atomic Machines.
Full description from Atomic MachinesAs posted on their careers site.ShowHide
About the Role
This executive leadership role is one of the most pivotal and technically broad at Atomic Machines. Reporting to the CEO and managing a team of 50+ Mechanical Engineers, you will be the executive responsible for the development of Atomic Machines' digital manufacturing "Nodes," each of which implements a class of physical manufacturing process, as a fully automated digital machine built upon our robust hardware and software platform that enables sophisticated interaction with all other Nodes, ultimately manifesting in the Matter Compiler (MC). You will lead a team of exceptional principal-level mechanical engineers (both ICs and ICMs) to design and build the Nodes -- from initial prototypes and DoEs through to commercial readiness -- required for the launch of our first product and beyond, and your team will work in the context of our fully operational Hybrid Fab, which provides a unique agile development/deployment environment for all aspects of the MC. Importantly, we are growing rapidly, and you will play a key role in further building out the team with additional bar-raising talent.
requirements
and error budgets for precision, throughput, and reliability (accuracy, repeatability, stiffness, settle time, drift, MTBF/MTTR, uptime) and translate them into subsystem specifications and verification plans.
- ✓Lead design and industrialization of motion subsystems (stages/gantries, rotary axes, Z/force axes), end-effectors, fixturing, and in-situ metrology aligned with sub-micron performance needs.
- ✓Establish rigorous design processes: design reviews, interface control documents (ICDs), GD&T and tolerance analysis standards, DFMEA/PFMEA, verification & validation (V&V) plans, and disciplined engineering change control (ECO/ECN).
- ✓Build scalable calibration and alignment strategies into the hardware (datums, fiducials, kinematic mounts, reference artifacts) and partner with software to automate calibration, compensation, and drift detection.
- ✓Partner with Manufacturing Engineering to develop the prototype-to-production pipeline for node hardware: supplier strategy, DFM/DFA/DFS, first-article inspection, incoming quality, build documentation, assembly/test fixtures, and ramp to stable yields.
- ✓Drive reliability engineering for nodes: test strategy (lifetime, wear, thermal cycling, vibration, contamination), FRACAS, root cause analysis, preventive maintenance design, and reliability growth metrics.
- ✓Hire, develop, and lead a high-performing multi-disciplinary hardware organization (ME, opto-mechanics, test/validation) with a strong bar for technical excellence and execution.
- ✓Partner cross-functionally to integrate nodes into complete manufacturing systems and debug factory issues with urgency, rigor, and high standards.
Show full description ↓Show less ↑
Atomic Machines is building the Matter Compiler™, the first in a new class of AI-native, all-digital manufacturing systems that build working machines directly from code. The Matter Compiler (MC) is aimed at micro-machines: motors and gears the size of a grain of sand, robots small enough to work inside the body, cooling built directly into the chips that run AI, and the many devices like them that have been waiting on a way to build them. Its first product is PrimeSwitch™, an electromechanical power relay the size of a button battery that carries 150 amps continuous current and opens in 50 microseconds, about a thousand times faster than a conventional contactor. Founded by Jeff Holden — serial entrepreneur, ex-Amazon SVP and Uber’s first Chief Product Officer — the company has raised $250 million to date.
Atomic Machines is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Emeryville and Santa Clara.
What You’ll Do
- •Cultivate a high-performing leadership team by managing managers and directors while ensuring their teams consistently deliver against strategic objectives and engineering excellence standards.
- •Own the node hardware architecture: mechanism selection, kinematics, structural design, thermal control, sensing, actuation, and serviceability - with clear interfaces to software, controls, and manufacturing.
- •Drive hardware
What You’ll Need
- •15+ years leading cross-org teams (including managers/directors) and driving org-level hiring/talent strategy, plus 7 years as an IC building complex robotics, precision automation, or advanced manufacturing systems.
- •Demonstrated ownership of multiple hardware systems shipped to production: from early prototypes through manufacturing ramp and sustained field operation.
- •Deep expertise in one of the following: precision mechanism design: stiffness/compliance, vibration/dynamics, thermal drift, error budgeting (including Abbe errors), and practical metrology.
- •Strong command of GD&T, tolerance stack-ups, and design for manufacturability/assembly/service (DFM/DFA/DFS), including collaboration with suppliers and quality teams.
- •Experience selecting and integrating sensors and actuators (encoders, force/torque, vision, capacitive/inductive, pneumatics, motors, bearings) with clear understanding of physics and failure modes.
- •Track record of building hardware test and validation frameworks: DVP&R, fixture design, automated test where appropriate, and clear pass/fail criteria tied to requirements.
- •Strong reliability and failure analysis skills: DFMEA/PFMEA, RCA, DOE, CAPA, wear/fatigue, contamination, and field-debug discipline in production environments.
- •Systems-level leadership and communication across mechanical, electrical, controls, software, vision, manufacturing, and supply chain domains.
- •Cultural alignment with first-principles reasoning, accountability, disciplined thinking, high standards, and truth-seeking teamwork.
- •Minimum bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a related field with deep hands-on hardware execution.
$350,000 — $