CNC Machinist
Manufacturing - Villeneuve, CH
The position
- Crew
- Manufacturing
- Location
- Villeneuve, CH
- Type of contract
- Full-time
Your role
PAVE Space is building LYOBA, a heavy kick stage moving over 4-tonne payloads from LEO to high-energy orbits in under 24 hours. The engine spins on impellers and shafts with tolerances measured in hundredths of a millimeter. No one outsources work that critical when they can do it better in-house. That's why we're building the shop, and why we need you in it.
The Villeneuve workshop is coming online, the machines are being specified, and the engine campaign needs hardware in months, not quarters. You'll be one of the first machinists on the shop floor, cutting the first articles and shaping the standards that everyone after you inherits.
You will own
3-axis and 5-axis CNC mills and CNC lathes for engine and turbopump hardware
High-precision rotating components — shafts, impellers, spacers, housings, bearing seats
Tooling, cutting strategies, and workholding selection for complex materials and geometry
Machining process development and documentation, from prototype through repeat builds
Manufacturability feedback in design reviews — GD&T schemes, surface finishes, achievable concentricity and runout
In-process inspection and metrology, including CMM support and non-conformance resolution
Contribution to shop standards: tool libraries, fixture conventions, inspection routines
What we are looking for
5+ years of CNC machining in a precision environment
Hands-on 5-axis simultaneous machining experience, programming and operating
Track record holding geometric tolerances ≤ 0.01 mm / 0.0005 in on rotating hardware
Experience machining stainless and alloy steels, aluminium, and nickel-based alloys including Inconel
Proficiency with CAM software — Mastercam, Fusion, NX CAM, or equivalent
Strong GD&T fluency, including the judgement to flag ambiguous or unrealistic callouts
Inspection and metrology competence — calipers, micrometers, indicators, CMM
English, fluently; French strongly preferred
Nice to have: turbomachinery or aerospace rotating hardware; balancing and rotor symmetry experience; setting up or expanding a machine shop from scratch; prototype or R&D-driven environment where parts iterate fast.
You will fit if
You'd rather hold a tenth of a hundredth of a millimeter than make the part go faster.
You see a design and instinctively know what fixture, what tool, what cutting strategy will hold the tolerance.
You'd push back on a designer when the GD&T can't be machined the way it's drawn, and propose the version that can.
You take pride in surface finishes nobody asks about but the bearing notices.
You want to be hands-on with first articles and rapid rework, not running production from a comfortable distance.
The job is fully on-site in Villeneuve (VD), with our test site in Chavalon twenty minutes away. The shop is being built around you — you'll be helping spec the machines, set the tool standards, and lay out the floor. This is hard and early. If you want an established shop running mature parts, this is the wrong seat. If you want to cut the first impellers for the most ambitious space programme in Switzerland, it's the right one.
We are building to ship, grounded on real hardware, real funding, real milestones. Apply to contribute, surrounded by people as sharp as you are. And if this isn't you but you know that person, send them our way.