About the Company
Kalam Labs is building Autonomous Space Planes for Indian Military. Our vehicles have consistently performed at 100,000+ ft in close to supersonic speeds across varied terrains.
About the Role We are hiring a Senior Airframe Manufacturing Engineer to own the fabrication and assembly of flight-grade airframes across our vehicle programmes. This is an extreme hands-on role, you will be on the shop floor cutting, machining, welding, and assembling real hardware that flies, not pushing CAD models to a vendor and waiting.
Responsibilities
- End-to-end airframe fabrication: from raw stock to flight-ready structure
- Hands-on machining of high-grade metals (Ti-6Al-4V, Inconel 718, maraging steel, 7075-T6, 2024 aluminium) on CNC mills, lathes, and 5-axis machines
- Sheet metal forming, spinning, and hydroforming for fuselage skins, bulkheads, and pressure vessels
- TIG / electron beam / friction stir welding of aerospace alloys, including post-weld heat treatment
- Composite layup and co-curing where metal-composite hybrid structures are required
- Jig and fixture design for repeatable assembly to flight tolerances
- Surface treatment, anodising, passivation, and NDT (dye penetrant, ultrasonic, X-ray) coordination
- Process documentation, traceability, and quality control for classified programme audits
- Direct involvement in design-for-manufacture reviews with the structures and aerodynamics teams
Pay range and compensation package
CTC: ₹18 – ₹30 LPA Company-provided accommodation and living amenities ESOP participation Work directly on classified national defence programmes
Qualifications
- B.Tech / Diploma in Mechanical, Aerospace, Production, or Manufacturing Engineering
- Minimum 5 years of hands-on shop floor experience in aerospace, defence, or precision manufacturing
Required Skills
- Proven experience machining titanium, nickel superalloys, and high-strength aluminium alloys to aerospace tolerances
- Direct operating experience on CNC machines (Fanuc / Siemens / Heidenhain controls), manual mills, and lathes
- Strong grasp of GD&T, first article inspection, and metrology (CMM, laser tracker, surface plates)
- Welding qualification or deep familiarity with TIG / EB welding of exotic alloys
- Ability to read and build directly from engineering drawings and 3D models (SolidWorks / CATIA / NX)
- Ability to work under classified programme constraints
Preferred Skills
- Hands-on experience building actual flight hardware (missiles, UAVs, sounding rockets, aircraft sub-assemblies) that has flown
- Exposure to AS9100 / NADCAP quality systems
- Experience with additive manufacturing of metal parts (DMLS, EBM, WAAM)
- Background in DRDO, ISRO, HAL, BrahMos, MTAR, Godrej Aerospace, or comparable defence R&D / production environments
- Tooling and jig design experience for low-volume, high-mix prototype builds
To Apply, send your CV and a brief note on the most technically demanding part you have personally manufactured, including the material, the machine, the tolerances achieved, and what made it hard.
