Mechanical Sustaining & Industrialization Engineer

Fotokite builds autonomous, actively tethered drones that give firefighters, police and other first responders an aerial view of an incident at the push of a button. More than 1,000 systems are in service worldwide. Our goal now is to make every next generation more robust, easier to build, and cheaper to produce, while it keeps working in rain, snow, wind and on the roof of a moving vehicle.

Keeping the fleet reliable and the product buildable is a job in its own right. We are looking for a mechanical engineer who enjoys making existing products better: finding why parts fail, fixing processes that cause defects, replacing components before they disappear from the market, and keeping production running smoothly.

You will join our engineering team in Zurich and work at the line between engineering, production and our suppliers, across the whole Fotokite system: the kite, the tether, and the ground station, including our vehicle-mounted Rooftop Box and Transport Case.

Your daily mission:

- Analyze failures from production, returns and the field, find the root cause and drive the fix through design, process or supplier changes

- Improve reliability of products in the field, using repair and return data to decide where to act first

- Targeted product Improvements to streamline production and assembly processes to reduce defects, assembly time and cost

- Manage component obsolescence and end-of-life: find and qualify replacements before parts run out

- Qualify second sources for critical components to reduce supply risk and cost

- Resolve technical quality issues with suppliers, from nonconformance reports and corrective actions to process audits and first article inspections

- Own engineering changes for products in production: assess the impact, update drawings and specifications, and keep BOMs in our PLM system accurate

- Maintain production documentation: assembly and work instructions, inspection criteria and test procedures

- Design, build and maintain production fixtures, jigs and test equipment

- Support the production team day to day with hands-on troubleshooting, and train assemblers on new or changed processes

- Work with the R&D team to industrialize new features and product variants, from design review input to the first production builds

- Feed lessons from production and the field back to the development team, so the next generation is easier to build and more reliable

What you bring to the team:

- Master's or Bachelor's degree in mechanical, manufacturing or industrial engineering, or a related field

- 3+ years in sustaining, manufacturing, quality or product engineering for electro-mechanical products

- A structured approach to problem-solving, experience with FMEA and other RCA methods

- Good knowledge of manufacturing processes such as CNC machining, sheet metal, injection molding and assembly

- SolidWorks (or equivalent), a working knowledge of GD&T, and experience reading and creating production drawings

- Experience with engineering change processes and PLM tools

- Confidence working with suppliers on technical topics, in person and remotely

- Initiative: you spot problems before they are reported and follow them through to closure

- Fluent English

Nice-to-have

- Experience with drones, robotics or other rugged outdoor equipment

- Experience with contract manufacturers and transferring production to them

- Knowledge of material compliance (RoHS, REACH)