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Sr. Screen Printing Equipment Engineer, Solar Cells (Starlink)

SpaceX· AI Satellite Solar Engineering
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Bastrop, TXfull-timePosted 2mo ago

About the role

Senior role responsible for owning and optimizing screen printing and related metallization equipment used to manufacture silicon heterojunction solar cells at high volume for Starlink satellites, ensuring equipment performance, uptime, and scalability.

Responsibilities

  • Work with facilities and process engineering teams to install, qualify, maintain, and continuously improve high-throughput screen printing equipment for heterojunction silicon solar cell manufacturing
  • Drive equipment reliability and uptime to support very large volume production with minimal downtime. Run experiments and analyze data to improve capacity (UPH), reduce tool-to-tool variation, and improve defect performance
  • Develop and execute robust preventive and predictive maintenance strategies, spare parts programs, and tool matching protocols for high-volume manufacturing
  • Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions on all equipment-related issues, including print heads, squeegee systems, alignment/vision systems, conveyors, drying ovens, paste delivery, and automation
  • Partner closely with Process Engineers to implement new process requirements on existing and future equipment platforms
  • Evaluate and select next-generation high-throughput screen printing tools capable of supporting 1GW+ per tool scale production
  • Work with vendors on equipment design improvements, upgrades, and custom solutions tailored to heterojunction solar cell requirements
  • Establish equipment performance metrics (OEE, MTBF, MTTR) and implement statistical process control for hardware stability
  • Ensure all equipment meets cleanroom, safety, and high-reliability manufacturing standards
  • Analyze production processes and machinery from a first principles, physics-based approach
  • Attend meetings to communicate factory state to leadership with respect to the team’s equipment

Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or related technical discipline
  • 5+ years of hands-on experience owning and maintaining screen printing or metallization equipment in a high-volume semiconductor, solar manufacturing, or related environment
  • Experience handling flammable, toxic, corrosive, and/or hazardous chemicals and materials safely (pastes, solvents, etc.)

Skills

Required:Screen printing equipment ownership and maintenanceProcess integration with engineering teamsPreventive and predictive maintenanceRoot cause analysis and corrective actions
Nice to have:Statistical process control and reliability engineering

Benefits

  • [Benefit details not provided in the description]
Last updated Jul 29, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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