Manufacturing Engineering & Estimating Manager - Fabrication

About Pen Manufacturing

Pen Manufacturing is an established Southern California metal fabrication and contract manufacturing business serving industrial, infrastructure, aerospace/defense, and other demanding customers.

We are investing in the company's sales, engineering, manufacturing capabilities, and equipment with the goal of building a larger, technology-enabled American manufacturing platform.

This role will have significant influence over how we engineer, quote, launch, and grow our most important customer programs.

Pen Manufacturing is seeking a senior, hands-on Manufacturing Engineering & Estimating Manager who combines deep sheet metal fabrication experience with DFM, estimating, production planning, and direct customer interaction.

This is not a desk-only engineering management role. We are looking for someone who has spent years close to the work and understands how fabricated sheet metal products actually get made. You should be able to work directly with customers, estimators, engineers, and the production floor to take a product from drawing or concept through quoting, planning, first article, and repeat production.

The right person will be equally comfortable reviewing a SolidWorks model with a customer, identifying DFM issues, determining how the product should be manufactured, building a realistic estimate and routing, planning material and work-center requirements, and working with the shop to solve problems during first articles and production ramp.

What You’ll Own

• Serve as the technical lead for several of Pen’s largest and most strategic customer programs
• Work directly with customer engineering and purchasing teams to understand requirements, resolve design issues, and improve manufacturability
• Review drawings, CAD models, specifications, and RFQs for feasibility and DFM
• Lead estimating and ensure quotes reflect realistic material, labor, routing, tooling, outside processing, and production assumptions
• Manage and develop Pen’s estimating and engineering resources
• Translate new customer programs from RFQ and prototype into repeatable production
• Develop manufacturing plans, routings, work instructions, material requirements, sequencing, and production requirements
• Understand how new work will flow through lasers/turrets, press brakes, welding, hardware, assembly, and outside processing before it is released to production
• Partner with Sales on technical discovery for major new opportunities
• Partner with Operations and Production to ensure jobs are released and scheduled intelligently
• Identify capacity and work-center constraints, tooling requirements, automation opportunities, and equipment needs
• Support first articles, prototypes, and production ramp-ups
• Review completed jobs against estimates and improve future costing and production assumptions
• Build strong technical relationships with customers and help expand existing accounts

What We’re Looking For

Required:

• 10+ years of hands-on experience in sheet metal fabrication, precision metal fabrication, or a similar contract manufacturing environment
• Strong understanding of laser cutting, punching, press brake forming, welding, hardware insertion, assembly, and outside processing
• Significant experience estimating and costing fabricated sheet metal products
• Strong hands-on DFM and manufacturing engineering experience
• Ability to read and critique engineering drawings, CAD models, tolerances, and specifications
• SolidWorks or similar 3D CAD experience
• Experience taking imperfect customer drawings/models and translating them into practical, repeatable manufacturing processes
• Comfortable working directly with customers on technical and manufacturing issues
• Strong understanding of labor standards, routings, material planning, sequencing, work-center capacity, and production planning
• Experience supporting products from RFQ and first article through production ramp and recurring manufacturing
• Willingness to be hands-on and spend significant time on the production floor
• Must work on-site in Anaheim, CA

Strongly Preferred:

• Experience in a high-mix / low-to-medium-volume job shop
• Aerospace, defense, data center, industrial equipment, electronics enclosure, or infrastructure manufacturing experience
• AS9100 manufacturing environment experience
• ERP/MRP experience
• Experience managing estimators or manufacturing engineers
• Experience as a senior manufacturing engineer, manufacturing engineering manager, technical program manager, estimator/engineering manager, or similar hands-on role
• CNC programming, nesting, or fabrication software experience
• Experience helping grow strategic customer accounts through engineering and DFM support

Who Will Do Well Here

You are probably a fit if you have spent your career close to the work and developed expertise across engineering, estimating, planning, and production rather than specializing in only one of them.

You don't need someone else to tell you whether a part can be manufactured. You can look at the drawing or model, understand the required processes, walk the floor, talk to the people making it, identify the problems, estimate the work, and develop a practical production plan.

You also understand that great manufacturing engineering is customer-facing. Customers often need more than a build-to-print supplier. They need a manufacturing partner who can identify problems before production, improve designs, and help them successfully scale a product.

If you have grown from the shop floor, CNC programming, estimating, or hands-on sheet metal manufacturing engineering into a senior technical or leadership role, we are particularly interested in speaking with you. A large team-management background is not required. Deep manufacturing judgment is.