hero

Your story awaits...

Cantos Ventures
companies
Jobs

Manufacturing Engineer

Vital Lyfe

Vital Lyfe

Los Angeles, CA, USA
Posted on Nov 14, 2025

Location

Los Angeles - Greater Area

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

On-site

Department

Production

About Vital Lyfe

At Vital Lyfe, we are on a mission to solve global water scarcity by creating innovative, desalination systems. This is an opportunity to join a passionate, multidisciplinary team tackling one of the world’s most critical challenges

What You'll Do

  • Design, develop and optimize manufacturing processes and production lines for our desalination systems—from first builds through high-rate production.

  • Lead DFM/DFA initiatives: tooling, fixtures, robot end-effectors, conveyors, automation programming, control systems.

  • Work cross-functionally to select equipment, define cycle-times, yield targets, cost-per-unit, quality metrics.

  • Develop work instructions, process flows, layout designs; implement and validate manufacturing methods for new systems.

  • Own continuous-improvement efforts: reduce cost, increase throughput, improve reliability and uptime in a fast-moving hardware startup environment.

  • Collaborate with procurement, quality, test, integration teams and external vendors/suppliers to ensure smooth scale-up & ramp-out of manufacturing.

What We’re Looking For
Required:

  • Bachelor’s in Engineering (Mechanical, Manufacturing, Industrial or equivalent).

  • 2+ years professional experience in manufacturing engineering, process development or production optimization (including internships).

  • Strong CAD (SolidWorks / other) experience and familiarity with manufacturing automation, tooling & fixture design.

  • Hands-on mindset: comfortable designing the process and also working with operators & equipment to validate and refine.

  • Strong problem-solving skills, ability to operate in ambiguous/higher-growth environment, clear communicator across teams.

Preferred:

  • Experience in consumer hardware production, or systems with high-volume manufacturing.

  • Knowledge of pumps, valves, pressure vessels, fluid systems or broadly mechanical-hardware manufacturing.

  • Experience with automation programming, conveyors, robotics, fluid/pressure equipment.

  • Familiarity with Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, statistical process control (SPC).

  • Experience in a hardware startup or mission-driven organization.

Physical Job Requirements - Essential Functions

  • Hands on work on development hardware.

  • Long periods of standing, crouching, walking.

  • Lifting up to 50 lbs.

Why Join Vital Lyfe?

  • Work on high-impact problems with global relevance

  • Help scale breakthrough technology in water security and climate resilience

  • Early ownership in a high-growth, engineering-led startup

  • Join a tight-knit, mission-driven team in a fast-paced environment

  • Build long-term career equity as we grow