Responsibilities
What you'll own
- Lead tool design for new polymer-optics programs in partnership with the optical and mechanical design lead and the molding process technician.
- Specify gate strategy, runner layout, cavity count, cooling, and venting; review supplier tool designs against Sandia's molding-cell process model.
- Own tooling timeline from kickoff through first shots, sampling, and tool tuning; close form, birefringence, and cosmetic findings before PPAP.
- Maintain the tool inventory: scheduled refurbishment, insert replacement, and end-of-life decisions; partner with maintenance on press-side interventions.
- Capture lessons-learned per tool and roll them into design standards so future tools start closer to the optimum.
Requirements
What we're looking for
- Five or more years designing or owning precision injection mold tools, ideally for optical or medical-device parts.
- Fluent in cooling-circuit design, gate selection, and pack/hold strategy for amorphous polymers.
- Comfortable adjudicating tool-supplier reviews and pushing back on shortcuts that compromise the molding window.
- Familiarity with the optical evidence loop — form, birefringence, gate-related defects — that drives tool tuning decisions.
Nice to have
Useful, not required
- Direct experience with cyclic olefin (Zeonex, Topas) and optical PMMA in production tooling.
- Insert-molding experience for optomechanical subassemblies.
More about the role
Context
About the role
Tooling decisions made in CAD show up six months later on the optical bench. You’ll own the chain from cavity layout to first shots to PPAP, with the molding process technician on one shoulder and the optical and mechanical design lead on the other. Tool tuning at Sandia is a process loop, not a one-shot — and you’ll lead it.
How to apply
Send a short note and resume to the address linked above. Tell us one tool you owned where an early design decision — gate, cooling, or venting — turned out to be the binding constraint on an optical release criterion.