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Hadrian

Tooling Engineer, Welding

Location

Los Angeles, CA

Wage

$115,000 – $170,000/yr

Employment Type

Full-time

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Posted on October 17, 2026

Job Description

Overview

Hadrian is building autonomous factories to reindustrialize America by combining AI, advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing. The Tooling Engineer will design and build fixtures and tooling for welding complex aerospace, defense, and naval parts.

Responsibilities

  • Design weld fixtures and tooling from concept through detailed drawings.
  • Validate tooling designs with FEA and hand calculations for load, stiffness, and thermal effects during welding.
  • Manage tool fabrication with internal shops and outside vendors, then prove out, verify, and release each tool to production.
  • Work with welding engineers and welders on the floor to control distortion, improve fit-up, and make tools easy and safe to use.
  • Design and adapt tooling for robotic welding cells and positioners.

Requirements

  • Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Manufacturing, or Welding Engineering, or equivalent hands-on experience.
  • 4+ years designing tooling in a manufacturing environment.
  • Experience designing weld fixtures or tooling, or a combined background in both welding and tooling design.
  • Track record of taking tools from CAD into production and supporting them through prove-out and continuous improvement.
  • Proficiency in 3D CAD (SolidWorks, NX, or CATIA) and GD&T, plus FEA or static analysis.
  • Working knowledge of welding processes, weld distortion, and material selection for tooling exposed to high heat and high loads.

Benefits

  • Health Insurance
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • 401k
  • PTO

Additional Information

  • The role is based at the weld development facility in Los Angeles.
  • Relocation support may be provided for certain situations.

Benefits

Health Insurance
Dental
Vision
401k
PTO
Apply for This Position

How this job compares in Los Angeles, CA

Pay in context

At roughly $69/hr, this posting sits about 63% above the $42/hr median for welding jobs in Los Angeles, CA — toward the top of a $31–$60/hr middle band drawn from 34 postings with published pay. Put another way, it pays more than about 85% of the comparable postings we have wage data for. Pay that far above local median usually comes attached to something: a harder cert requirement, travel, night shift, or overtime that isn't really optional. Worth establishing which before you accept.

The local market in Los Angeles, CA

We're tracking 51 other active welding openings in Los Angeles, CA right now, from 37 different employers. None of them were added in the last week, so this is a slower-moving market. Across California as a whole we're tracking 418 other active welding openings from 206 employers. A metro this active generally means you have real leverage — employers here are competing for the same welders. Browse every welding job in Los Angeles, or widen the search to California.

Hadrian currently has 4 other openings live in California, which is usually a sign of either steady growth or steady turnover — worth asking which in the interview.

The most active employers in California at the moment, by number of open welding reqs, are SpaceX (27), Welding Shop in Los Angeles, CA (16), and Honeywell Aerospace (15). Volume like that usually means either a genuine expansion or a staffing agency working several client sites — worth knowing which before you apply.

Within California, the best-paying metros we track by median hourly rate are Santa Ana at $48/hr, Long Beach at $43/hr, and Los Angeles at $42/hr. Los Angeles is among them.

Similar openings near Los Angeles, CA

Pay figures are medians computed from live postings in the Welding Pros index, not from survey data, and they move as employers post. Tooling Engineer, Welding figures were last recalculated when this page was built.