Alex Chen

How the practice runs

• Every build starts from a written spec and a defined success test, so the client knows what "done" means before work begins.
• One build at a time, human-in-the-loop by default: the AI drafts and sorts, a person confirms the decisions that matter.
• Privacy-first: regulated or sensitive data is handled locally rather than pushed through general-purpose AI tools.
• Early engagements run as scoped pilots that prove value on a real workflow before anything scales.

What the engineering brings to it

• The same habits that qualify aerospace hardware: specify the requirement, test against it, document what was decided and why.
• Comfort translating a messy real-world process into a scoped, verifiable system, and knowing where a human check belongs.

Production validation & data package

• Ran weekly status and technical-alignment reviews at the build facility, tracking delivery schedule, assembly progress, and yield.
• Chaired the engineering release process that folded production-validation lessons and design updates into the technical data package.
• Recognized for delivering a major production-validation technical data package on schedule.

Sustainment & supply chain

• Served as the engineering liaison between internal operations and external suppliers for technical exchanges, RMA collaboration, and supplier corrective actions.
• Evaluated and qualified a second-source supplier to reduce sole-source risk, sharing historical lessons to drive first-pass success.
• Improved housing and ringframe design with high-temperature solder preforms for high-reliability hermetic connector sealing.
• Expedited engineering change requests and fabrication-package releases to support rapid-response recommendations and yield improvement.

Failure analysis & Material Review Board

• Lead mechanical authority on complex RCCA and MRB investigations across module types, resolving non-conformances with rigorous engineering justification.
• Investigated and contained structural leak failures, weld workmanship issues, particle-impact-noise (PIND) anomalies, solder voids, cracked traces, laser-weld misalignment, and gold embrittlement.
• Drove permanent corrective actions into product design, manufacturing workflow, and quality instructions; authored design-for-manufacturability guidelines, inspection aids, and material acceptance criteria.

Mentorship & technical training

• Delivered brown-bag training on the finite-element method (linear and non-linear static, modal, and dynamic) and on GD&T versus traditional coordinate tolerancing.
• Mentored junior and senior engineers in hermetic packaging, top-down assembly design, tolerance stack-up (worst-case, RSS, model-based), electrical interconnects, PWB/CCA packaging, and configuration management (ECR, EDRA, PDM, PLM).
• Structural, thermal, and CFD analysis across SolidWorks Simulation, MSC Patran / Nastran / Apex, and FloTHERM.

Patents

• Camera Module Autofocus Actuator and Control Method Thereof (US2017299945A1): a shape-memory-alloy wire drives the lens carrier, at least four spheres serve as low-friction sliding aids, and a return spring between the housing and carrier applies force along the optical axis only.
• Auto-Focus Actuator Unit with Dust Barrier for Camera Module (US9897773B2): the lens carrier reciprocates within a stationary housing frame whose bottom-plate opening aligns with the lens, and a dust barrier rises toward the carrier to hold a vertical overlap across the full travel, sealing out particulates.

Semiconductor capital equipment · 2011–2013

• Researched and validated replacement components for legacy systems; managed supplier sourcing on quote, lead time, and quality.
• Produced 3D designs, cable and harness drawings, and component layouts, with tolerance analysis at system and subsystem level.

Wire & cable · Taiwan · 2009–2010

• Mechanical system design and drawing checks to ASME Y14.100 for high-performance wire and cable products.
• Built standard operating procedures linking production workflow to ERP and MRP, and coded a production-scheduling software module.

Hybrid-electric heavy-duty drivetrains · 2008–2009

• Mechanical design and system integration for hybrid-electric commercial-vehicle drive systems, including engine cooling and harness routing.
• Administered the master CAD library and document control; contributed to a corporate engineering-drawing manual.

Turbine-engine field tooling · 2007–2008

• Re-engineered tooling and fixtures for turbine-component manufacturing; designed portable field tools for assembly, maintenance, and overhaul.

Civil & structural CAD · 2007

• Drafted civil and structural construction drawings and site sketches, with basic load-bearing analysis for permit compliance.