Senior DFx Engineer, Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years. ABOUT THE JOB Anduril's Air Dominance & Strike (AD&S) Manufacturing Engineering team is seeking a Senior DFx Engineer to drive design for manufacturability, assembly, and cost across our mechanical, structural, thermal management, and fluid systems (fuel, hydraulics, pneumatics) subsystems. This role spans our full portfolio of autonomous aircraft, cruise missiles, and loitering munitions — ensuring that design decisions account for how hardware will be built, by whom, and at what cost. You will bring specialty expertise in at least one of the following domains: mechanical structures and assemblies, thermal/heat transfer systems, or fluid systems including fuel, hydraulic, and pneumatic architectures. Your primary focus areas are manufacturability, assembly, and cost. You will work directly with subject matter expert (SME) manufacturing engineers and design engineers to evaluate producibility, negotiate design trades, and drive improvements that make hardware buildable and cost-effective. A key part of this role is supporting the selection and qualification of contract manufacturers — assessing supplier capabilities against DFx requirements and helping ensure that external production partners can deliver to the quality, rate, and cost targets our programs demand. This is an inherently cross-functional role: you will work daily with supply chain, quality, operations, and program teams in addition to ME and DE. WHAT YOU'LL DO Execute DFx analysis across mechanical, structural, thermal, and fluid systems subsystems for AD&S programs, with a primary focus on manufacturability, assembly, and cost. Participate in and help lead structured DFM/DFA/DFC reviews at key design milestones, applying rigorous scoring to identify producibility and cost risks and drive design changes before they reach production. Participate in and help lead/facilitate DFMEAs with cross-functional teams. Use FMEA outputs to drive design changes, inspection strategies, and control plans. Work directly with SME manufacturing engineers and design engineers to evaluate designs, translate manufacturing constraints into actionable feedback, and support design trades that balance performance, producibility, and cost. Support the selection and qualification of contract manufacturers for machined components, fabrications, composite structures, thermal hardware, and fluid system assemblies — assessing supplier manufacturing capability, process maturity, and cost competitiveness against DFx requirements. Participate in supplier manufacturing assessments including facility reviews, process audits, and capability evaluations. Contribute to should-cost models and cost-driver analyses for mechanical and fluid system assemblies, identifying design changes that reduce unit cost without compromising quality or performance. Develop and maintain DFx standards, guidelines, and scorecards specific to mechanical manufacturing processes including CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, welding, brazing, composite layup and bonding, tube bending and swaging, and mechanical assembly. Analyze designs across key lenses — manufacturability/assembly, cost structure, adherence to specification, process capability, and technology maturity — to contribute to quantified risk assessments that inform engineering and program decisions. Evaluate thermal management and fluid system designs for producibility — including tube routing, fitting selection, seal and joint design, heat exchanger fabrication, and cleanliness requirements. Partner with supply chain to align DFx requirements with sourcing strategy, ensuring that designs are producible by the suppliers we intend to use. Collaborate with quality engineering to ensure DFx findings flow into inspection plans, acceptance criteria, and supplier quality requirements. Close the loop between production floor feedback, supplier performance data, and upstream design improvements. Contribute to the DFx toolkit — templates, scoring rubrics, cost models, lessons-learned databases, and training materials — so that DFx knowledge scales across the organization. Travel to production sites, contract manufacturers, and supplier facilities (~20%, depending on business needs). REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related field. 8+ years of experience in manufacturing engineering, producibility engineering, or DFx with a significant focus on mechanical systems, thermal management, or fluid systems — with specialty expertise in at least one of these domains. Strong working knowledge of mechanical manufacturing processes: CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, welding, brazing, composite layup and cure, bonding, casting, forging, and complex mechanical assembly. Experience participating in or leading DFM/DFA reviews and translating findings into measurable design improvements that reduce cost and improve producibility. Experience supporting contract manufacturer evaluations — including facility assessments, process capability reviews, or production readiness evaluations. Understanding of cost drivers in mechanical and fluid system production, with exposure