Manufacturing engineer composite development

Are your excited about composites and creating products and solutions? Join KVE to help us develop products such as radomes, rotor blades and aircraft components using various composite manufacturing processes.

About KVE Composites

KVE is an advanced composite development factory, where skilled people build products and create business for the group. We are an autonomous unit within the Daher Group, strategically positioned in The Netherlands. Under one roof, we combine manufacturing with innovative composite product and process development. Our agile teams create composite solutions from concepts up to serial production, in close collaboration with our customers. We excel in advanced composite part production for defence and aerospace, with a focus on radomes, blades, and special products and are leaders in welding technology for thermoplastic composites. Our SME agility is backed by the stability and support of a large international company.

Our Mission

To be an advanced composite development factory, where skilled people build products and create business for the group.

Our Values

We work according to these principles:

• Drive – Strong inner motivation to achieve goals with a proactive attitude.

• Pragmatic – Focusing on solutions that are effective and realistic.

• Innovative – Bringing original ideas that create or improve value.

• Team Spirit – Working together in mutual trust and respect towards a common goal.

• Responsible – Being reliable, accountable and committed to doing the right thing for the company, customers and society.

Your Role

We are growing and we’re looking for a Manufacturing Engineer who will turn composite designs into repeatable, scalable and technician-friendly production processes. You will bridge engineering and production. Your goal: ensure our composite products can be built efficiently, consistently and to the highest quality standards.

What You Will DoDevelop composite parts and production processes

• Design composite parts for build to specification development projects

• Design and optimise toolings to manufacture composite parts

• Define and validate manufacturing process parameters for composite parts under development: Curing cycles, RTM, compression moulding.

• Bring the manufacturing maturity up to FAI and serial production

Validate manufacturability and quality through testing

• Define and execute Qualification Test Plans to ensure performance and safety

• Prepare sample panels, coupons and prototypes

• Coordinate tests - microcuts, DSC, mechanical, NDI - to demonstrate compliance with specifications

• Write the Qualification Test Reports

Work closely with technicians on the shop floor

• Be part of the prototypes or first article manufacturing in close collaboration with the technicians on the shopfloor

• Create clear Work Instructions and Process Standards to be easily usable in production

• Help turn process knowledge into visual, step-by-step guidance

Participate to industrialisation and ramp-ups

• Define and deploy standard processes and reliable and safe tooling to ensure consistent and scalable production

• Be part of the transitioning from paper to digital work instructions

• Increase the safety culture in KVE

Throughout your work, you will apply and respect our EN9100 quality system, ensuring every deliverable meets aerospace-grade standards.

Your ProfilePreferred experience:

✔ Hands-on experience with composite manufacturing processes: Prepreg, RTM, Compression moulding
✔ Designing skills with Solidworks and/or Catia
✔ Know how work with geometric dimensioning and tolerancing in a composite production environment
✔ Enjoy being on the shop floor as much as behind a CAD or Excel screen

Additionally, you:

• Have a structured and curious mindset – you solve problems by testing, improving and validating

• Have knowledge of EN9100 as a plus

• Communicate easily with both engineers and technicians

• You speak English fluently and can easily communicate using the appropriate technical terms, both verbally and in writing.

• You already hold a Dutch work visa or are an EU citizen. We are unable to offer visa sponsorship (under the Highly Skilled Migrant Scheme) for this position.

• You already live in the Netherlands, due to the travel time to our office.

Why Join Us?

At KVE, you work in a dynamic engineering team where your ideas directly impact production. You will see your development work turn into real composite products used in the field. You’ll learn, experiment, prototype, qualify and build – not just design and hands off.

If you want to help bridge design and production, love composites, and enjoy hands-on engineering, we’d love to meet you.For Dutch nationals, we even offer the opportunity to work “in the field” with our products as a military reservist.

Working Conditions

• A one-year contract (32-40 hours) with prospect to permanent employment

• 25 vacations days

• Travel allowance

• Personal development opportunities

• Bike plan

• Good pension plan

Here’s how the application process works

• Apply – Upload your resume and cover letter, and answer a few short questions.

• Meet & Greet – We get to know each other and get a better sense of one another.

• In-depth Interview– Interview with the hiring manager about your professional expertise and the job responsibilities.

• Terms of Employment – We’ll discuss practical details, such as terms and conditions and your start date.

Ready to take off?

We only consider complete applications (resume + answered questions).

Not quite sure if you meet the profile requirements? Apply anyway, and we’ll work together to see if there’s a match.

Questions about this job opening? Please contact Stavroula Kafka at kafka@kve.nl.

Third-party applications in response to this job posting are not appreciated.Please note: Currently, we do not offer visa sponsorship or a relocation allowance for this position.