Head of Manufacturing

We are seeking a Head of Manufacturing to lead and scale our manufacturing organization.

This is a highly hands‑on leadership role for someone who understands how to manufacture complex hardware in a fast‑paced environment. You will own the strategy, processes, people, facilities, and systems required to deliver high‑quality products reliably and at increasing volumes.

The ideal candidate has built or scaled manufacturing operations within the defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, robotics, or other complex hardware industries and is equally comfortable on the production floor, working through technical issues with engineering, and developing the long‑term manufacturing strategy.

We’re looking for a leader who can build the manufacturing organization, not simply inherit one
. You should be comfortable setting the long‑term strategy while still spending significant time on the production floor solving today’s problems.

You know how to bring structure and discipline to manufacturing without creating unnecessary bureaucracy. You understand that in a rapidly growing defense company, manufacturing is not simply a downstream function—it is a critical partner to engineering and an essential part of getting capable systems into customers’ hands quickly and reliably.

• Own the overall manufacturing strategy, production operations, and execution across the organization.
• Build and scale manufacturing capabilities to support the transition from prototype and low‑rate initial production (LRIP) to higher‑volume production
  .
• Establish production processes, workflows, tooling, work instructions, and manufacturing standards that improve quality, throughput, and repeatability.
• Lead manufacturing teams across areas such as production, manufacturing engineering, technicians, integration, and test
  .
• Partner closely with Mechanical, Electrical, RF, Systems, Test, and other engineering teams to ensure products are designed for manufacturability, assembly, and test.
• Drive Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) into the product development lifecycle.
• Own production planning and capacity planning to ensure manufacturing can meet aggressive customer and program schedules.
• Develop manufacturing KPIs around yield, throughput, cycle time, quality, cost, schedule performance, and capacity
  .
• Identify production bottlenecks and implement processes, automation, tooling, or equipment to improve manufacturing efficiency.
• Establish strong configuration control, documentation, traceability, and production discipline appropriate for defense and aerospace products.
• Stand up and enable Quality to establish inspection, acceptance, non‑conformance, corrective‑action, and continuous‑improvement processes.
• Work closely with Supply Chain to identify critical suppliers, mitigate material constraints, and ensure production readiness.
• Develop make‑versus‑buy strategies for critical components, assemblies, and manufacturing capabilities.
• Own manufacturing facility planning, including production layout, equipment, tooling, lab space, ESD‑controlled environments, and future capacity requirements.
• Support customer deliveries, production readiness reviews, audits, and other manufacturing‑related customer or government requirements.
• Recruit, develop, and lead a high‑performing manufacturing organization while maintaining a culture of accountability, urgency, quality, and continuous improvement.

• 5+ years of experience in manufacturing, operations, manufacturing engineering, or production leadership
  , preferably within defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, robotics, or complex electromechanical hardware.
• Demonstrated experience building or scaling a manufacturing operation
  , ideally from prototype or low‑rate production into repeatable…