Job Purpose

The Senior Industrial Engineer is responsible for making the KARNO production system measurable and then making it better. This position owns capacity and takt modeling, line balancing and standard work, layout and material flow design, and constraint elimination across core assembly, power module integration, the linear electric motor build, and the subassembly cells that feed them.

As Cedar Park becomes the production home of the KARNO Power Module, this position takes the footprint from a set of individually capable work areas to a connected, balanced flow that produces at a published, credible rate — where takt is defined, the constraint is known rather than argued about, work content at each station is measured, material arrives where it is used, and adding rate is a planned move rather than a scramble. This is a hands-on senior individual contributor role on the Manufacturing Engineering team, partnering daily with Production, Quality, Supply Chain, and Design Engineering, with substantial time spent on the floor with the technicians who do the work.

AI at Hyliion

At Hyliion, AI is core to how we work. We equip every team member with leading AI tools and count on you to use them — to move faster, solve harder problems, and help us realize the full potential of KARNO technology for the world.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Capacity and Takt Modeling: Build and maintain the capacity model across all four production areas — demonstrated versus theoretical capacity, station-level cycle times, labor content per unit, and the constraint. Keep it current and honest, and make it the number the organization plans against.
• Line Balancing and Standard Work: Conduct time studies and work measurement, establish defensible labor standards, and balance work content across stations to takt. Own the routings and standard times in the ERP so planning, costing, and scheduling all draw from the same source.
• Layout and Flow Design: Design the floor layouts for the production areas as they stand up and as they grow — material flow and travel distance analysis, point-of-use presentation, workstation and cell design, and layouts that accommodate the next rate step rather than requiring a rebuild to reach it.
• Material Flow and Pull Systems: Design and implement pull systems with Supply Chain and Production Control — kanban sizing, supermarket and point-of-use stocking, min/max levels, kitting strategy, and WIP caps that expose problems instead of hiding them.
• Constraint Elimination and Continuous Improvement: Run the improvement cycle: value stream mapping, kaizen events, A3 problem solving, changeover reduction, and 5S. Quantify the value of each change before implementation and verify what it delivered afterward.
• Metrics, Analytics, and Visibility: Build the reporting that shows how the system is actually performing — throughput, first-pass yield, labor efficiency, station utilization, WIP, and cycle time — sourced from ERP and shop floor data rather than hand-maintained spreadsheets.
• Cost Modeling and Capital Justification: Model cost per unit and labor content, and build the justification for material handling equipment, workstations, and tooling that improves flow. Take capital from business case through installation to qualified and in use.
• Hyliion Production System: Help build out the Hyliion Production System — the standard practices, visual management, and tiered accountability that make good performance repeatable rather than heroic — and help define what standard looks like at Hyliion.
• Configuration and Change Impact: Model the effect of engineering changes on flow, cycle time, and capacity before they land, so the organization can see what a late change costs and decide with that information in front of it.
• Ergonomics and Safe Work Design: Design workstations that people can work at safely all day — reach, lift, posture, tool access, and material presentation designed in rather than corrected after an injury.
• Additional duties and responsibilities as assigned, needed, or required for the business.

Qualifications

Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Qualifications include:

• Education, Experience and Certifications
  • Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline required, or equivalent demonstrated experience.
  • 6+ years of industrial engineering experience in a manufacturing environment, including direct ownership of capacity analysis, line balancing, and layout design.
  • Demonstrated success in low-volume, high-complexity, or prototype-to-production environments — industrial engineering applied where the process was still changing, not only where it was mature and stable.
  • Hands-on experience designing plant layouts and workstations, including material flow analysis and point-of-use material presentation.
  • Experience implementing pull systems and material flow on a live production floor.
  • Precision electromechanical assembly, rotating or reciprocating machinery, high-voltage systems, or power generation experience beneficial.
  • Aerospace, defense, medical device, or other regulated high-consequence hardware experience beneficial, including AS9100 or ISO 9001 systems.
  • U.S. Government or DoD program support experience beneficial.
  • Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, APICS CPIM, PMP, or formal ergonomic assessment training beneficial.
  • Ability to work on-site in Cedar Park, TX.
• Skills and Abilities
  • Genuine command of the industrial engineering toolkit in practice rather than in theory: time study and work measurement, takt and cycle time analysis, line balancing, value stream mapping, capacity modeling, bottleneck and constraint analysis, and standard work.
  • Working command of pull systems and material flow — kanban sizing, supermarkets, min/max, kitting, and WIP management.
  • Fluency with ERP routings, standard times, and BOM structure, and the ability to make ERP data reflect physical reality.
  • Strong quantitative and modeling skills, with advanced Excel as a baseline, plus the ability to build analysis and reporting from shop floor and ERP data.
  • CAD fluency sufficient to produce and revise layouts and workstation designs (AutoCAD, NX, or equivalent).
  • Fluency reading and challenging engineering documentation — drawings, BOMs, ECOs, and specifications.
  • The credibility and interpersonal instinct to work alongside technicians, gather accurate data from people who are being observed, and get changes adopted without holding direct authority.
  • Comfort operating in a pre-commercial environment where product configuration is still changing and the production system must be built rather than inherited.
  • Discrete-event simulation experience (FlexSim, Simul8, AnyLogic, or similar) beneficial.
  • SQL, Python, or Power BI for manufacturing analytics beneficial.
  • MES or ERP implementation experience beneficial.
  • Additive manufacturing exposure beneficial.

Role Classification and Working Conditions

This is a salaried, exempt-level position. Work is performed in a development and production manufacturing and test environment, with substantial time spent on the production floor conducting observations and studies. 

Physical/Other Requirements

• Ability to stand and walk for extended periods, access equipment in confined or elevated positions, and occasionally lift and move materials up to 40 pounds, with or without reasonable accommodation.
• Compliance with all site PPE and safety requirements is mandatory.
• Occasional travel to the Milford, OH facility, approximately 10%.