SpaceX Sr. Wet Process Equipment Engineer owns chemical processing equipment for manufacturing silicon heterojunction solar cells. Drives equipment reliability, maintenance, and scaling to support high-volume production.
Responsibilities
Work with facilities and process engineering teams to install, qualify, maintain, and continuously improve high-throughput texturing and preclean equipment for heterojunction silicon solar cell manufacturing
Drive equipment reliability and uptime to support very large volume production with minimal downtime. Run experiments and analyze data to improve capacity (UPH), reduce tool-to-tool variation, and improve defect performance
Develop and execute robust preventive and predictive maintenance strategies, spare parts programs, and tool matching protocols for high-volume manufacturing
Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions on all equipment-related issues, including chemical delivery systems, pumps, filtration, temperature control, robotics/automation, wet benches, and exhaust/abatement systems
Partner closely with Process Engineers to implement new process requirements on existing and future equipment platforms
Evaluate and select next-generation high-throughput texturing tools capable of supporting 1GW+ per tool scale production
Work with vendors on equipment design improvements, upgrades, and custom solutions tailored to heterojunction solar cell requirements
Establish equipment performance metrics (OEE, MTBF, MTTR) and implement statistical process control for hardware stability
Ensure all equipment meets cleanroom, safety, and high-reliability manufacturing standards
Analyze production processes and machinery from a first principles, physics-based approach
Attend meetings to communicate factory state to leadership with respect to the team’s equipment
Qualification
Experience handling flammablePrevious work at high-volume solar
Required
Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or related technical discipline
5+ years of hands-on experience owning and maintaining chemical process equipment in a high-volume semiconductor, solar manufacturing, or related environment
7+ years of hands-on experience owning and maintaining chemical process equipment in a high-volume semiconductor or solar manufacturing environment
Strong technical expertise in chemical delivery systems, wet process equipment, pumps, filtration, temperature control hardware, robotics, and automation
Demonstrated success improving equipment uptime and reliability in a 24/7 high-volume production setting
Experience with heterojunction (HJT) silicon solar cell manufacturing equipment
Previous work at high-volume solar, semiconductor, or display manufacturing facilities (multi-GW or 300mm fab experience is a plus)
Deep knowledge of texturing tool architecture and subsystems
Experience with chemical concentration control, bath lifetime optimization, rinse systems, dryer systems, and particle control
Experience with electro-pneumatic robot and transfer module systems
