Job Opening: Product Development Technician

Sparkz Inc., is looking to hire two Product Development Technicians at their California location. Posted July, 18 2022.

Job Description

Sparkz is looking for a knowledgeable and dedicated Product Development Technician to support our growing in-house battery manufacturing business. As the primary stakeholder for the maintenance and change management of the engineering documentation and derived operation procedures developed across the manufacturing enterprise, you will play an important role. This is a critical position in our organization; you will be responsible for ensuring that the engineering documentation structure meets the organization’s needs and that disciplined engineering change management is used effectively and in a disciplined manner.

Duties and Responsibilities

  • Provides the central point of communications for engineering and procedural technical documents within the internal departments and the equipment suppliers.
  • Contributes to continuous improvement to assure compliance with the established requirements and build a World-Class manufacturing culture.
  • Assists in documentation writing and revising, including test methods, final product specifications, SOPs, etc.
  • Track KPIs and generate reports for product and manufacturing system performance.
  • Ensures flow of documents and as-build reports between or within departments.
  • Collaborate with other departments to ensure a unified understanding of the processes.
  • Manufacturing experience: exposure to the lithium-ion industry is required.

Requirements and Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in Industrial, Manufacturing, Quality, or another relevant field is preferred.
  • 5+ years of exposure to an engineering change management environment.
  • Understanding of agile strategies, work breakdown structures, and project integration in a manufacturing setting.
  • Proven experience process documentation analysis, and the ability to capture and effectively communicate gaps.
  • Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office, relational databases, and ERP systems (e.g., NetSuite).
  • Deep understanding of product and equipment qualification processes and drive continuous improvement in the manufacturing systems.
  • Strong leadership, communication, strategic thinking, change management, and analytical skills.
  • Exceptional communication and organizational skills.

Apply Here >

Founder & CEO

Dr. Sanjiv Malhotra

Dr. Sanjiv Malhotra is the founder and CEO of Sparkz—the battery start-up reinventing the energy supply chain.

 

Malhotra has been a leader in the energy sector for nearly three decades as a founder, investor and executive. Most recently, he served as the inaugural director for the Energy Investor Center at the U.S Department of Energy (DOE), serving under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

 

At DOE, Malhotra led the Obama Administration’s initiative to boost public-private partnerships to accelerate the commercialization of technologies developed in national research centers like Oak Ridge National Labs.

 

Malhotra was recruited to the Department of Energy after a successful exit of Oorja Protonics—the world leader in methanol fuel cells—which he founded and led as CEO for 10 years. Oorja raised $50 Million in equity financing from leading VCs such as Sequoia, DAG Ventures, Artis Capital and others during his tenure. He boosted Oorja’s revenue and profitability growth, while expanding operations globally in Japan, China, South Africa, Mexico, and India.

 

Oorja was acquired in 2014 by the Private Equity firm MinXing Growth Fund.

 

As an investor and consultant, Malhotra has worked at leading venture capital firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers as an advisor on clean energy and advanced materials.

 

Earlier in his career, Malhotra led the engineering and product development team at H Power, a pioneer in hydrogen fuel cells. As part of the management team, he managed the successful IPO, which raised more than $100 million in August 2000.

 

He began his career as a post-doctoral fellow at the renowned Lawrence Berkeley National Labs on electrochemical storage systems. Dr. Malhotra has authored seven patents and more than 40 publications in various fields of energy storage technology and materials. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering and an M.B.A from University of Iowa.