Welding Engineer
Structures - Villeneuve, CH
The position
- Crew
- Structures
- Location
- Villeneuve, CH
- Type of contract
- Full-time
Your role
From early Q1, every weld on LYOBA will have to meet a standard that you wrote, in a welding shop that doesn't exist yet and that you'll setup.
PAVE Space is building LYOBA, a heavy kick stage moving up to 4-ton payloads from LEO to high-energy orbits in under 24 hours.
So, why now?
Early Q1 is when we start reviewing supplier welds and bringing welding in-house, and you'll own both. Within weeks of starting, you'll go from your first weld review to the first qualified procedure in our own shop, on flight hardware where getting it nearly right isn't good enough.
You will own
Writing and qualifying WPS/PQR for aluminium and stainless steel
Setting up the PAVE Space welding shop from scratch: equipment, fixtures, layout, process control
The welding coordinator role (ISO 14731), meaning you sign off on welding quality for both external and in-house work
Defining NDT requirements and leading root-cause analysis when welds fail
Design-for-weldability reviews with the structures and propulsion teams
What we are looking for
5+ years in welding engineering
IWE/EWE diploma (or equivalent), which is required because you'll be our welding coordinator
Hands-on aluminium TIG and manual stainless steel welding. You can weld yourself, not only specify it
You've written and qualified WPS/PQR to a recognised standard (ISO 15614, ASME IX or AWS D17.1)
You've specified NDT and led weld failure investigations through to corrective action
You've managed external welding suppliers on both quality and delivery
Fluent English
Nice to have: FSW or EBW experience, French, having set up a welding shop before, and a background in large welded structures or pressure equipment.
You will fit if
You'd rather write the first WPS than maintain someone else's two hundredth.
You're as credible auditing a supplier in the morning as you are at the torch in the afternoon.
You can tell a structures engineer their joint won't weld, then help them redesign it.
Being the only welding person sounds like ownership to you, not isolation.
The position is fully on-site in Villeneuve (VD), because we have a strong on-site culture. You'll start as the only welding specialist, and there's no shop yet. Nobody will hand you a process, because you're the one writing it. What makes that worth it: every procedure, qualification and inspection rule PAVE Space welds to will be yours, and LYOBA's welded flight hardware will be made in the shop you design.
We are building to ship, grounded on real hardware, real funding, real milestones. Apply to contribute, or send this to the welding engineer you'd trust with a blank page.