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Join Our Team as a Lead Composite Manufacturing Engineer

Invent new ways of manufacturing wind turbine blades.

DFM Blades is an earlystage, ambitious startup (founded 2024) redefining how wind turbine blades are designed and manufactured. Today, blade manufacturability is often considered too late in the design process, resulting in complex builds, heavy reliance on craftsmanship, avoidable defects, and costly rework.
Our mission is to change that — by developing fundamentally new blade design and manufacturing concepts that shift production from craftsmanship to engineered assembly. The goal is faster, more consistent, and truly scalable blade manufacturing.
We are looking for a Lead Composite Manufacturing Engineer to take ownership of manufacturing concept development, from first principles through prototyping, risk assessment, scaleup, and implementation with customers.
This role is about creating manufacturing concepts — not simply maintaining or optimising existing processes.

The Role

This is a high‑impact technical role with real ownership. You’ll sit at the intersection of design, manufacturing, and scale-up, turning novel blade concepts into robust, repeatable production processes. You’ll work hands-on in our workshop, collaborate closely with design, and engage directly with customers and partners to support real world deployment of our technology.

As DFM Blades grows, you will have the opportunity to help define future capability needs and play a key role in shaping and mentoring a growing technical team

What You’ll Do

Blade DfM Development

Develop and mature design-for-manufacture concepts for wind turbine blades.
Lead concept evaluation and down selection using data, experimentation, and engineering judgement.
Drive rapid prototyping in our workshop using a “fail fast, learn fast” approach working closely with technicians.
Define manufacturing architectures that may require entirely new tooling, workflows, or process logic, not incremental adaptation of existing methods.
Identify potential failure modes and define Critical to Quality (CTQ) requirements.
Define and document optimised process parameters for consistent, high quality output.

Process Definition & Risk Management

Translate selected concepts into clearly defined, repeatable manufacturing processes.
Lead PFMEAs and other risk-assessment activities to identify, mitigate, and document process risks.
Define and document key process parameters, tolerances, and control methods to ensure consistent quality and manufacturability.

Scale-Up, Industrialisation & Customer Implementation

Lead the transition of DFM Blades’ manufacturing concepts from R&D into robust, industrial-ready processes.
Support the implementation of our technology within customer manufacturing environments, working closely with their engineering and production teams.
Develop clear work instructions, SOPs, process flows, and training material to support technology transfer and adoption.
Collaborate on the design and specification of tooling, fixtures, and equipment required for both internal development and customer implementation.
Support pilot builds, demonstrations, and early production runs, using feedback to refine processes and reduce risk.

Quality, Safety & Compliance

Develop inspection methods, quality controls and acceptance criteria.
Ensure processes meet (internal) standards and applicable external requirements.
Embed health, safety, and environmental considerations into all manufacturing activities.

Collaboration

Work closely with design and production to ensure manufacturability from day one.
Engage with external experts including customers, suppliers, consultants, and research institutes.
Communicate clearly through structured documentation, hand sketches, storyboards, and visual aids.

What Success Looks Like

Blade concepts move from idea to prototype quickly and predictably.
Manufacturing processes become simpler, more repeatable, and less reliant on craftsmanship.
Risks are identified early and designed out.
The foundations are laid for industrial-scale blade production.

Who You Are:

Essential

Strong hands‑on experience in composite manufacturing, including vacuum assisted resin infusions, adhesive bonding, materials, curing cycles, and tooling.
Proven experience taking ownership of manufacturing concept development and seeing ideas through to implementation.
Comfortable working with ambiguity and incomplete information, shaping both the problem and the solution.
Experience defining manufacturing processes, identifying risks (e.g. PFMEA), and driving process maturation.
Experience with process risk management (e.g. PFMEA) and production troubleshooting.
Experiment minded, able to design trials, analyse data, and translate results into practical manufacturing improvements.
Self-motivated, practical, and comfortable in an early stage startup environment.
Clear communicator with strong documentation skills (sketches, storyboards, written procedures).
Eligible to work in the UK.

Desirable

Experience in wind energy, aerospace, or marine composites.
Experience establishing new manufacturing processes from a low-TRL starting point.
Familiarity with quality systems in industrial or regulated environments.

Practicalities

BEng (or higher) in a relevant engineering discipline.
Typically 5+ years’ relevant industry experience.
Willing and able to travel occasionally to suppliers, partners, and customers.
Right to work in the UK.

Why Join DFM Blades

Real impact: your work directly influences the cost, quality, and scalability of wind energy.
True ownership: lead manufacturing concepts end to end, from idea to customer deployment.
Hands-on environment: access to an excellent workshop (including 5-axis CNC) and skilled technicians.
Growth: the opportunity to grow with the company as our technology and team scale.
Flexibility: predominantly onsite in Fareham, Hampshire, with occasional home working.
Compensation: competitive salary based on experience and capability.

If you’re ready to revolutionise blade manufacturing, we’d love to hear from you!
Please share your CV and a covering letter.