Staff 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 Staff DFx Engineer to serve as the technical authority on 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 every design decision accounts for how hardware will be built, by whom, and at what cost. You will bring deep specialty expertise in at least one — and ideally two — 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 — the three lenses that determine whether a design can be produced at rate, by a qualified supplier, at an affordable price point. You are not reviewing designs in the abstract; you are shaping them to be buildable. A critical part of this role is working directly with subject matter expert (SME) manufacturing engineers and design engineers to evaluate producibility and drive design improvements. You will also play a key role in the selection and qualification of contract manufacturers — assessing supplier capabilities against DFx requirements and ensuring 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 Own and drive DFx analysis across mechanical, structural, thermal, and fluid systems subsystems for AD&S programs, with a primary focus on manufacturability, assembly, and cost. 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. 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 negotiate design trades that balance performance, producibility, and cost. Assist in the selection and qualification of contract manufacturers for machined components, fabrications, composite structures, thermal management hardware, and fluid system assemblies — assessing supplier manufacturing capability, process maturity, and cost competitiveness against DFx requirements. Conduct supplier manufacturing assessments including facility reviews, process audits, and capability evaluations to determine readiness for production qualification. Develop and maintain 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, casting, forging, and mechanical assembly. Analyze designs across key lenses — manufacturability/assembly, cost structure, adherence to specification, process capability, and technology maturity — to produce quantified risk assessments that inform engineering and program decisions. Evaluate thermal management designs (heat exchangers, cold plates, thermal interface materials, cooling loops) for manufacturability and cost-effective production at rate. Assess fuel, hydraulic, and pneumatic system designs for producibility — including tube routing, fitting selection, seal and joint design, leak test strategies, 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. Build and evolve the DFx toolkit — templates, scoring rubrics, cost models, lessons-learned databases, and training materials — so that DFx knowledge scales across the organization. Mentor and develop junior and mid-level engineers on DFx principles, cost analysis techniques, and supplier assessment methods. 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. 12+ years of experience in manufacturing engineering, producibility engineering, or DFx with a significant focus on mechanical systems, thermal management, or fluid systems — with deep specialty expertise in at least one of these domains. Strong technical depth in mechanical manufacturi