Manufacturing Engineer
About the Company
The mining industry has steadily become worse at finding new ore deposits, requiring >10X more capital to make discoveries compared to 30 years ago. The easy-to-find, near-surface deposits have largely been found, and the industry has chronically under-invested in new exploration technology, relying on the manual techniques of yesteryear – even as demand accelerates for copper, lithium, and other metals to build electric vehicles, renewable energy, and data centers.
KoBold builds AI models for mineral exploration and deploys those models—alongside our novel sensors—to guide decisions on KoBold-owned-and-operated exploration programs. In the six years since founding, KoBold has become by far both the largest independent mineral exploration company and the largest exploration technology developer. Our data scientists and software engineers, who come from leading technology companies, jointly lead exploration programs with our renowned exploration geologists.
KoBold has proven its first discovery with materially less capital than the industry average and found one of the best copper deposits ever discovered: the copper is far more concentrated than the global average of copper mines, and this asset alone is expected to generate meaningful revenue for decades. KoBold has a portfolio of more than 60 other projects, each of which has the potential for another high-quality discovery.
KoBold is privately held; investors include institutional asset managers T. Rowe Price and Canada Pension Plan Investments; technology venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BOND Capital, Durable Capital, StepStone, and Standard Investments; and natural resources companies Equinor, BHP, and Mitsubishi.
About the Role
The Manufacturing Engineer will be a member of KoBold's Advanced Technology Group (ATG), which develops and deploys new hardware technology to support Kobold’s exploration and mine development efforts. As the technology matures, we move to developing multiple or even dozens of complex systems that need to be repeatable, high quality and deployable to often harsh environments. The manufacturing engineer will be responsible for turning prototype level hardware into reliably built, documented, and deployed systems.
This is a many-hatted role, taking on more than routine manufacturing engineering. This person will simultaneously be a manufacturing engineer, supplier development, quality, and build owner/supervisor. This person will own the physical build environment including the lab, shop floor, and receiving as well as owning the relevant supply chain. They will also establish the documentation and quality practices that let ATG scale from one-off prototypes to repeatable production.
At Kobold we see engineering and manufacturing as inextricably linked and interdependent and we strive to achieve minimal friction between these roles. To that end, this person will work extremely collaboratively with technical leads and design engineers to mature Kobold’s technology.
Responsibilities
Build Management
- Plan and manage hardware builds, from prototype through low-volume production—scheduling, kitting, and coordinating across engineering and vendors.
- Track build status, bills of materials, and part availability to keep builds on schedule.
- Identify and resolve manufacturing bottlenecks and design-for-manufacturability issues in coordination with design engineers.
Lab & Shop Floor Management
- Own the day-to-day operation of the lab and shop floor—layout, equipment, tooling, consumables, and safety.
- Maintain and calibrate shop and test equipment; manage service and maintenance schedules.
- Establish and enforce shop floor practices, workflows, and safety standards.
- Specify and source equipment as needed
Receiving & Quality
- Own the receiving process—inspection, verification against POs, and intake into inventory.
- Establish incoming and in-process quality checks; track and resolve nonconformances with suppliers.
- Manage returns, rework, and supplier quality issues.
Supply Chain & Sourcing
- Source components and services—identify, qualify, and develop vendors for hardware builds and ATG projects.
- Own vendor relationships and follow-up—drive on-time delivery, resolve issues, and hold suppliers accountable.
- Manage ordering and inventory—place orders, track stock, and keep parts available to support builds.
Documentation & Documentation Control
- Create and maintain build and deployment documentation—work instructions, assembly procedures, test protocols, and deployment guides.
- Establish and own documentation control—revision management, BOM control, and change management for hardware and procedures.
- Ensure documentation stays current as designs evolve and is accessible to the teams building and deploying in the field.
Equipment Deployment and Field Support
- Proactively resolve bottlenecks with Field Ops and Exploration teams to get gear to site.
- Assist with documentation for field deployment - assembly instructions, calibrations, validations.
Manufacturing Engineering
- Provide DFX feedback to in progress designs of new equipment.
- Resolve technical issues with parts, assemblies and systems as they are encountered during fabrication, build, assembly and test.
General
- Field miscellaneous ATG operational and facilities tasks as they arise.
- Generally own facilities for the Berkeley office.
Qualifications
Required
- Degree in mechanical, manufacturing, or industrial engineering (or equivalent education/experience).
- 3-5 years in manufacturing, production, or hardware build engineering, ideally in a prototype-to-low-volume environment.
- Hands-on experience managing hardware builds and shop/lab environments.
- Experience with sourcing and vendor development
- Experience with inventory and materials management
- Working knowledge of BOM management, revision control, and documentation control practices.
- Strong project management skills—able to track multiple concurrent builds, deadlines, and stakeholders without dropping balls.
- Comfortable working directly with design engineers and translating between design intent and buildable, documented processes.
- Detail-oriented, organized, and self-directed in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.
- Proficiency with standard business tools (Google Docs/Sheets)
- Ability to work in an office in Berkeley on a daily basis. Able to travel up to 5-10%.
Preferred
- Experience with New Product Introduction (NPI) in a hardware startup
- Experience implementing or administering an MRP/PLM system.
- Experience with build, test and calibration of camera and/or sensing systems.
- Familiarity with quality management systems and inspection processes.
- Experience with field-deployed hardware or instrumentation.
- Experience managing overseas vendors and w/ international logistics
- Machining, fabrication, or 3D printing experience.
- Familiarity with GD&T and reading engineering drawings.
What success looks like in this role
A successful Manufacturing Engineer makes ATG's hardware builds predictable, repeatable, and trustworthy. Builds run on schedule because parts are sourced ahead of need, vendors deliver on time, issues are caught and resolved quickly and inventory is well managed. Systems are also as simple as possible to build due to strong DFX feedback during the design process. Everything around fabrication, build, test, and calibration is meticulously well documented and revision controlled such that future units can be built identically and the history and contents of a deployed system are clear. The team has the tools and equipment that they need and the lab, shop floor, and receiving—runs smoothly and safely.
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunities for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, disability, or veteran status.
This position is (Full-time Exempt, Part Time, Contract)
The US base salary range for this full-time exempt position is $110,000-$180,000, plus equity and benefits including 401k matching.
Location: KoBold is a remote-first workplace. All candidates must be legally authorized to work in one of the following countries: United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, United Kingdom, Zambia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Finland, Sweden, or Botswana.
[For Zambian Positions Use:] This position is a full-time contract
At this time, we are only accepting applications from Zambian nationals.
Location: Lusaka, Zambia”)