Welding Metallurgist, Metallurgy

About Manastu

Manastu Space is a Space Safety and Logistics company focused on making space safe, sustainable, and accessible. We develop technologies to address critical challenges such as space debris mitigation and green propulsion, enabling safer satellite operations, and long-term sustainability of the space ecosystem.

Our work sits at the intersection of advanced engineering, applied research, and mission-critical systems, requiring deep technical capability and long-term thinking.

Website: https://www.manastuspace.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/manastu-space/

Email: [email protected]

Role Objective

Every propellant tank and every feed line that flies on a Manastu vehicle is a welded structure, and the weld decides whether it holds. You will own weld metallurgy for the department. You will set how our aluminium, stainless steel and advanced alloy hardware is joined, qualify the procedures that produce those joints, and establish that the weld metal and the heat affected zone are fit for service in our hydrogen peroxide green monopropellant.

You will not hold the torch. Manufacturing and outside sources weld to the procedure you write, and you are accountable for whether that procedure is right. Every welded flight part leaves this department against a qualified procedure, a parameter record and a passed inspection, and you own all three.

Role Overview

We need a Welding Metallurgist in Navi Mumbai with a master’s degree and 5 to 7 years of experience, or a PhD and 2 to 3 years, in welding metallurgy, weld procedure development or joining process engineering. This is a hands-on technical ownership role. You will report to the Head of Metallurgy.

You will build weld metallurgy here from the ground up: process selection, written and qualified procedures, welder and vendor qualification, the inspection requirement for each joint, and the quality system that holds them together. We work in aluminium alloys, stainless steels and advanced materials such as nickel based superalloys, in forms that range from tank shells to thin wall small bore tube, so the joining method is expected to follow the hardware rather than habit.

This is a metallurgist’s post before it is a welding engineer’s.

We expect depth in the metallurgy itself: solidification and weld metal structure, heat affected zone behaviour, phase and precipitate response, and failure read from sections and data rather than from the arc. Process skill matters, and it follows the metallurgy. You will work where metallurgy, welding engineering and quality meet, under an aerospace discipline: a qualified procedure for every joint, a record for every weld, and a traceable reason for every deviation.

The research, quality, manufacturing and assembly teams will build to the procedures you set, so a procedure that is wrong does not stay a laboratory problem. It becomes a flight problem.

Key Responsibilities

1. Own weld metallurgy for the department. Select the joining process for each part and defend the choice against the alternatives, rather than defaulting to a single method.
2. Bring welding into design. Work with the design team on joint type, edge preparation, tolerance and fit-up,



check that a joint can be reached by the torch or orbital head and by the inspection method, and say so before the drawing is frozen.
3. Write, qualify and maintain weld procedures for the materials we fly, including aluminium alloys, stainless steels and advanced materials such as nickel based superalloys, with the qualification records behind them, to a recognised welding code.
4. Establish weld quality for the department: the acceptance criteria for each joint class, the in-process controls and hold points, the documentation and the traceability, so that weld quality is built into the process and demonstrated, not inspected in at the end.
5. Qualify and re-qualify welders and operators against those procedures, and keep the register current.
6. Qualify and control outside welding sources. Approve a source against our requirements, issue the procedure, audit the work, and make sure the parameter, operator and inspection records come back with every part.
7. Qualify a current welding vendor before any flight work is placed with it: capability assessment, trial and qualification welds, operator qualification at their works, and periodic re-audit to keep the approval valid.
8. Take every weld defect to root cause with data, write the fix into the procedure, and prove on later joints that it held.
9. Control the weld environment as part of the procedure, not as an afterthought: filler characterisation and storage, consumables, shielding and purge gas, humidity and dew point, and pre-weld cleaning.
10. Design weld coupons that separate parent metal, weld metal and heat affected zone, and run them with the compatibility group to show the joint is fit for propellant service.
11. Set the inspection requirement for every flight joint, whether visual, dye penetrant, radiographic or leak test, and make sure the result is recorded against the part.
12. Control distortion and residual stress through fixturing and weld sequence, so the welded assembly stays inside tolerance.
13. Specify the post-weld condition and hand the welded part on to surface treatment with its route already defined.
14. Maintain the weld data: the defect log, the rejection trend, the parameter records and the metallography, so that welding decisions are made on numbers.
15. Train manufacturing and assembly staff to follow the written procedures, and keep the knowledge in writing so the department does not depend on one person.
16. Be accountable for weld integrity on flight hardware. No welded flight part is accepted without a qualified procedure, a parameter record and a passed inspection, and you hold a part back when any of the three is missing.

Experience & Background

1. A master’s degree (M.Tech or M.E.) in Welding Engineering, Welding Technology, Materials Joining, Metallurgical Engineering or Materials Science and Engineering, or a PhD in a welding or joining related area.



A closely related master’s degree with substantial welding content will also be considered.
2. 5 to 7 years of experience after the master’s degree, or 2 to 3 years after a PhD, in welding metallurgy, weld procedure development, joining process engineering or weld failure investigation.
3. Hands-on capability in both aluminium alloys and stainless steels. This is a must. Exposure to other advanced materials, such as nickel based superalloys, is an advantage.
4. Joint design and component geometry: has fed welding requirements back into a design, and understands how geometry, fit-up and access decide what the weld can be.
5. Weld metallurgy in depth: solidification and weld metal structure, heat affected zone behaviour, phase and precipitate response, filler selection and its consequence, loss of strength in the heat affected zone of precipitation hardened aluminium alloys, and sensitisation, delta ferrite and heat tint in austenitic stainless steels.
6. Metallography as a working tool, not a service someone else provides: prepares and reads macro and micro sections, and relates what the section shows back to the parameters that produced it.
7. Weld defects and non-destructive testing: porosity, lack of and excess penetration, cracking and lack of fusion by cause; visual, dye penetrant, radiography and leak testing, and what each method can and cannot detect. Reads a radiograph themselves rather than only passing it to an inspector.
8. Depth in more than one welding process, not familiarity with one. GTAW and orbital GTAW, GMAW, and at least one of electron beam, laser or friction stir welding. Welding simulation or modelling, for heat input, distortion or weld sequence, is a plus.
9. Thin wall and small bore work, where heat input decides whether the joint survives.
10. Weld procedure specification and procedure qualification to a recognised code such as ASME Section IX, AWS D17.1 or ISO 15614, and welder qualification against it.
11. Experience of holding an outside welding source or job shop to a written procedure is an advantage.
12. Relevant backgrounds include aerospace and launch vehicle fabrication, pressure vessel manufacture, tube and fitting manufacture, nuclear and process industry piping, and research institutes. Experience with hydrogen peroxide or other oxidiser service is an advantage, but it is not necessary.
13. A recognised certification or formal training in welding engineering, welding inspection or non-destructive testing is preferred.

Ideal Candidate Profile

- A metallurgist first: as comfortable at the microscope as in the welding bay, and reads a section rather than guessing from the surface.
- Owns a procedure that other people execute, and holds them to it without holding the torch.
- Closes a defect by cause and proves the fix held, instead of changing a parameter and hoping.
- Chooses a process on evidence, and is not attached to the one they know best.
- Writes clearly, so that a procedure can be followed and audited by someone who was not in the room.
- Reports a bad result early, and is willing to hold a joint back when the records do not support releasing it.

What we offer

Comprehensive health insurance

High ownership and visibility, with direct access to leadership

Support for learning, conferences, and research exposure

Subsidised lunch plan

📌 Weld Metallurgist (Navi Mumbai)
🏢 Manastu Space
📍 Navi Mumbai