Manufacturing Engineer

Union City, California (On-site)

Position overview

Proficium is seeking a hands-on and detail-oriented Product/Manufacturing Engineer to support the full product lifecycle—from development through in-house and contract manufacturing—within a high-mix, customization-driven environment. This role serves as the critical link between Sales, Marketing, Production, Quality, and Supply Chain to ensure our cabling products are designed, released, built, tested, packaged, and delivered with accuracy, consistency, and speed. In addition to supporting global manufacturing partners, this role will directly support Proficium’s in-house production by developing work instructions, routings, test methods, and packaging standards, while driving yield, quality, cost, and operational efficiency. The engineer will translate customer requirements and sales commitments into manufacturable, cost-effective, and scalable solutions that meet customer and business objectives.

Key responsibilities

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define product requirements and specifications.
• Provide technical support to Sales, Marketing, Quality and other teams as needed.
• Continuously identify opportunities to improve product performance, quality, and cost.
• Analyze field returns, customer complaints, and product failures to identify trends and drive corrective actions.
• Own BOMs, routings, drawings, and specifications for all products.
• Ensure every part number sold has an approved BOM, manufacturing drawing, test method, and packaging/labeling standard.
• Release complete manufacturing packages (BOMs, drawings, process specs, test requirements, packaging instructions) to contract manufacturers.
• Resolve CM technical questions related to fiber routing, connectors, polarity, packaging, and labeling.
• Support first-article builds, pilot runs, and production ramps.
• Drive engineering readiness for FAU, fiber arrays, copper cable and fiber cable assemblies, etc.
• Improve scrap, rework, labor efficiency, and packaging cost.
• Support should-cost modeling, alternate materials, and process optimization.
• Own ECOs, BOM changes, and drawing updates.
• Ensure all changes are reflected in ERP system, CMs, packaging, and test systems.
• Support root cause analysis, and corrective actions.
• Ensure test data is captured by serial or lot number.
• Ensure packaging and labeling traceability.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Manufacturing, Mechanical, Electrical, or related field).
• 10+ years of experience in Manufacturing Engineering, Product Engineering, or related roles.
• Experience supporting high-mix, low- to medium-volume manufacturing environments.
• Strong experience creating and maintaining BOMs, routings, and engineering drawings.
• Ability to interpret cable, connector, and assembly drawings.
• Working knowledge of ERP systems (Sage or similar) for BOMs, WOs, and part numbers.
• Strong data mining and analytical skills, including the ability to extract, analyze, and interpret manufacturing, quality, and cost data to drive decisions and improvements.
• Experience designing and specifying manufacturing tooling, fixtures, and test setups to support efficient, repeatable production.
• Familiarity with quality systems, root cause analysis, and corrective actions.
• Strong documentation and change control discipline (ECOs, revisions, traceability).
• Comfortable working cross-functionally with Sales, Operations, Supply Chain, and Quality.
• Able to work in a fast-moving, customer-driven, startup-scale environment.