Manufacturing / NPI Engineer - Jiga

What We're Building

Jiga is on a mission to help engineers build physical products faster.

Engineers designing physical products often waste weeks chasing quotes, vetting suppliers, managing freight, and recovering from bad parts. Jiga fixes this by connecting engineers directly with vetted manufacturers (CNC, sheet metal, injection molding, 3D printing, castings) and running the entire supply chain on their behalf — from RFQ to the loading dock.

We're a small, fully-funded, cashflow-positive team serving enterprise customers across hardware, industrial, robotics, defense, and aerospace.

The Role

Our customers are increasingly bringing us production work — not just one-off prototypes. They want us to take a part from first article through low-volume to mass production without losing geometry, blowing tolerances, or surprising them on price.

We’re hiring a Manufacturing / NPI Engineer to be the technical and process spine that makes production-class work repeatable. You'll own the engineering side of new-program introduction: design-for-manufacture (DFM) review, first-article inspection (FAI) planning, configuration and revision control, qualification protocols, and the technical project management that gets a customer from 'prototype that worked' to 'production run we trust.' You won’t run a machine — our manufacturing partners do that — but you will be the person customers, suppliers, and our internal team trust to scale production reliably.

This role is also the engineering connective tissue between Jiga and our manufacturing partners. You’ll build deep relationships with our suppliers — aligning on process, transferring knowledge in both directions, and making sure execution on the shop floor matches what was agreed at the engineering table.

This is a US-based, customer-facing engineering role. Some travel is part of the job — to customer sites for design reviews and program kickoffs, and to supplier sites for alignment and execution support — but it isn’t the majority of the work.

How We Work

We're a small remote team distributed around the globe — most of our product and engineering talent sits in Europe and Israel, while our operators sit across the US, EU, and Asia. Most of our work is async.

• High trust, low bullshit: No hour counting or micro-management. You'll have real ownership over how production engineering runs at Jiga.
• Question everything: See a control plan that doesn't make sense? Rewrite it. Think the FAI flow is broken? Fix it.
• No busy work, no fluff: Build processes that fit the product and verify that they actually work.
• Friendly and connected: Weekly online games and annual company offsites.

What We Value in Engineering

• Know every part cold: For every part in flight, answer revision history, process, qualified suppliers, required inspections, and pipeline status.
• Process fits the product: Match the level of process rigor (configuration control, FAI, control plans) to the part, customer, and volume.
• Walk the factory floor: Know what suppliers' machines, processes, and engineers can actually do.
• Verification beats documentation: Ensure processes are actually followed on the shop floor and producing correct parts.
• Talk like an engineer to engineers: Serve as a peer to engineers at top hardware companies and manufacturing partners.

What You'll Do

Own the NPI Funnel from RFQ to Production

• Serve as the technical owner on every program with a path to production — from initial RFQ review through prototype, qualification builds, and ramp to volume.
• Run structured DFM reviews on incoming production candidates to surface manufacturability issues early.
• Define processes to move parts from prototype tooling to production tooling (hard vs. soft tooling, amortizing costs).
• Partner with customer engineering teams on design questions, alternative materials, and process trade-offs.

Own FAI, Qualification, and Quality Protocols

• Build and own Jiga’s First Article Inspection process (dimensional reports, CMM, material/finish certs, RoHS/REACH, product photos).
• Define qualification protocols for scaling parts from prototype to production: sample sizes, inspection cadence, and acceptance criteria.
• Author control plans and inspection plans for complex parts and ensure supplier execution.
• Lead the engineering side of customer-driven supplier audits.

Enforce Configuration and Revision Control

• Maintain clear configuration control: know active production drawing revisions, approvals, and change histories.
• Enforce ECN / ECO workflows with customers and suppliers.
• Verify drawing accuracy across customer requests, supplier inputs, and final shipped components.

Technical Project Management & Supplier Link

• Run programs end to end: manage timelines, gate reviews, and stakeholder communications across teams.
• Act as technical escalation point for production issues; lead root-cause investigations and corrective actions.
• Build deep engineering relationships with manufacturing partners, aligning upfront on process selection, tolerances, inspection, and defect handling.

Improve the System

• Advance our platform as the central system of record for revisions, FAI status, control plans, and qualification data.
• Use data to surface recurring engineering issues and create playbooks, templates, and features to prevent them.

You're a Fit If You Have

• Process Focus: See yourself as a process engineer first and technical specialist second.
• Experience: 6+ years of hands-on manufacturing engineering, NPI, or production engineering experience at a contract manufacturer, OEM, or hardware company taking products from prototype to production.
• NPI Track Record: Successfully ran an NPI program from DFM through PPAP / FAI / qualification to volume production.
• Configuration Control: Hands-on experience with ECN / ECO processes and revision management.
• Quality Protocol Mastery: Deep fluency in FAI, control plans, inspection plans, and quality protocols (AS9102 / PPAP / ISIR or equivalent).
• Drawing & CAD Literacy: Ability to read mechanical drawings and CAD (PDF, STEP, SolidWorks); strong command of GD&T.
• Process Knowledge: Broad exposure to CNC machining, sheet metal, injection molding, castings, and additive manufacturing.
• Project Management: Ability to manage technical timelines, gate reviews, RAID logs, and executive updates.
• Communication: Clear, concise, direct communication style with strong engineering writing skills.
• Location & Eligibility: US-based with openness to occasional domestic/international travel. ITAR-eligible / US person status is a plus.
• Language: Fluent in English; Hebrew, Mandarin, Vietnamese, or German are a bonus.

Nice-to-Have

• Background in defense, aerospace, medical devices, or regulated manufacturing environments (AS9100, ISO 9001, ISO 13485, ITAR).
• Degree in mechanical, manufacturing, or industrial engineering.