Technical Trainer – Manufacturing & Composites

ABOUT FIREFLY AEROSPACE

Firefly Aerospace is a space and defense technology company that enables our world to launch, land, and operate in space - anywhere, anytime. As the partner of choice for critical space missions, Firefly is the only commercial company to launch a satellite to orbit with 24-hour notice and the only company to achieve a successful Moon landing. Our launch vehicles, lunar landers, and orbital vehicles provide government and commercial customers with full mission services from low Earth orbit to the Moon and beyond. Headquartered in north Austin, Texas, Firefly is looking for passionate, hardworking innovators to join our team and help fuel our successful trajectory into space.

SUMMARY

The Technical Trainer is responsible for building, delivering, and continuously improving the training and development program that equips manufacturing employees to succeed - from their first day of onboarding through the full arc of their career at Firefly.

This role is both a teacher and a program builder. As a teacher, the Technical Trainer delivers engaging, hands-on instruction that helps employees navigate company and employee systems, understand manufacturing processes and documentation, and develop the technical skills needed to support production. As a program builder, this role designs a structured onboarding and development pathway that ramps new hires quickly, reinforces skills over time, and measures whether the training is actually working.

The trainer will learn Firefly's full composites manufacturing lifecycle - working closely with technicians, engineers, Quality, and other subject-matter experts - and translate that knowledge into a scalable, technology-enabled curriculum. A key part of this role is tracking training effectiveness and surfacing trends back to the engineering and operations teams to help shape processes that enable faster, more reliable onboarding.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Facilitate engaging instructor-led classroom, small-group, and hands-on technical training, adapting delivery to different experience levels and learning styles.
• Teach employees to navigate company and employee systems (timekeeping, learning/training, manufacturing documentation) and to access work instructions, drawings, specifications, and production records.
• Teach proper documentation, traceability, and manufacturing process requirements, including composites instruction spanning material handling, tool prep, layup, bonding, vacuum bagging, curing, autoclave operations, trimming, finishing, and inspection.
• Design and own a structured onboarding program that equips technicians and new hires from day one, with clear milestones, competencies, and qualification checkpoints.
• Build career-long development pathways that reinforce, advance, and re-qualify skills well beyond initial onboarding.
• Develop lesson plans, presentations, demonstrations, job aids, exercises, knowledge checks, and full curricula grounded in adult-learning and instructional-design principles.
• Use technology and modern content tools (LMS, video, interactive e-learning, digital job aids) to create impactful, scalable, and repeatable courses.
• Define and track training-effectiveness metrics (time-to-productivity, competency attainment, qualification pass rates, on-floor performance) and analyze the data to identify trends and gaps.
• Provide data-driven inputs to engineering, manufacturing, and Quality to shape processes, documentation, and tooling that enable faster, more reliable onboarding.
• Learn Firefly's full composites manufacturing lifecycle by partnering with technicians, engineers, Quality, and SMEs - spending time on the floor to reinforce training, maintain qualification records, and keep materials current as processes change.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Manufacturing, Mechanical, Industrial, Aerospace, or related engineering discipline - or equivalent hands-on manufacturing engineering experience.
• 3+ years of experience in a manufacturing, aerospace, or production engineering environment, with direct exposure to how processes, tooling, and hardware actually come together on the floor.
• Insatiable curiosity - a genuine drive to understand how things work, take processes apart, and figure out why each step matters.
• Demonstrated ability to articulate a process in detail - breaking complex, technical work into clear, logical, teachable steps that others can follow and repeat.
• Extroverted and energized by people - enjoys spending time with technicians, engineers, and new hires, and builds trust quickly across the shop floor and the classroom.
• Extreme self-starter - takes ownership of ambiguous problems, builds structure where none exists, and drives programs forward without waiting to be directed.
• Ability to quickly learn new software, employee systems, manufacturing processes, and technical concepts.
• Ability to translate complex technical information into clear, practical instruction, and comfort presenting to groups.
• Ability to read, understand, and explain technical procedures, work instructions, drawings, and manufacturing documentation.
• Ability and willingness to learn Firefly's full composites manufacturing process from material preparation through completed hardware.
• Comfortable working in both classroom and active manufacturing environments.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.

Desire d:

• Experience as a Manufacturing/Process Engineer who developed work instructions, standard operating procedures, or process documentation that others were trained against.
• Prior experience teaching, mentoring, or formally training technicians, peers, or new engineers.
• Hands-on background as a technician or in a skilled trade before moving into engineering - a builder who understands the work firsthand.
• Familiarity with adult-learning, instructional-design, or Train-the-Trainer concepts (or eagerness to develop them).
• Experience designing onboarding or ramp-up programs and measuring their effectiveness (e.g., time-to-productivity, competency tracking).
• Experience using data and analytics to identify trends and drive process or program improvement.
• Experience authoring e-learning / interactive content or administering an LMS.
• Experience with ERP, MES, HRIS, document-control, quality, or manufacturing systems.
• Experience within aerospace, defense, automotive, aviation, or another high-rigor technical environment.
• Exposure to composites manufacturing processes, including layup, bonding, vacuum bagging, curing, autoclave operations, trimming, or finishing.

Firefly offers outstanding benefits for our employees, including generous health, dental and vision plans with low plan deductibles, parental leave, relocation benefits, educational reimbursement, short term disability, and flexible PTO options.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Firefly is governed based on merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.