Design Engineer

The Design Engineer will bridge product design and manufacturing reality. This individual must understand machining constraints, tooling strategies, material behavior, and process capability, ensuring every design released can be executed with precision, efficiency, and quality.

This is a hands-on engineering role operating at the intersection of CAD, CNC, and production optimization.

Key Responsibilities Design for Manufacturability (DFM)

• Develop and refine product designs optimized for CNC machining and tight-tolerance manufacturing
• Evaluate tolerances, stack-ups, and material selections for production feasibility
• Reduce manual touchpoints through design simplification and automation alignment

3D Modeling & Technical Design

• Create detailed 3D models and assemblies using CAD platforms
• Produce fully dimensioned technical drawings with GD&T application
• Maintain revision control and engineering documentation integrity

Manufacturing Process Integration

• Partner with CNC programmers, machinists, and manufacturing engineers to validate designs
• Support fixture design, workholding concepts, and tooling approaches
• Translate prototype designs into production-ready configurations

Prototype & New Product Development

• Lead prototype iterations from concept through production validation
• Utilize additive manufacturing (3D printing) for rapid prototyping and design testing
• Conduct fitment, function, and tolerance validation

Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to improve cycle time, reduce scrap, and enhance manufacturability
• Support automation and lights-out machining initiatives
• Drive engineering changes that improve throughput and cost efficiency

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or related field
• 0-3 years of manufacturing engineering or design engineering experience
• Direct experience within CNC machining or heavy industrial manufacturing environments
• Strong understanding of machining processes, tooling, and materials
• Advanced 3D CAD modeling capability
• Experience producing manufacturing drawings with GD&T, * Firearms or tight-tolerance product experience
• Additive manufacturing / 3D printing knowledge
• CAM programming familiarity
• Fixture and workholding design experience
• ERP / PLM exposure

Success Profile The right candidate:

• Designs with manufacturing in mind, not aesthetics alone
• Understands machine capability, not just CAD capability
• Anticipates tolerance and process risk before release
• Thrives in a precision, high-accountability environment
• Operates with urgency and ownership

Atlas Gunworks builds some of the most precise, tight-tolerance products in the world. This role exists to ensure our designs are not only high-performance on paper but manufacturable, repeatable, and scalable on the shop floor.