Senior Manager, Optical Fabrication

Description ABOUT US Join a Global Photonics Leader:
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Gooch & Housego (G&H) is a global precision photonics manufacturer serving the industrial, aerospace & defense, life sciences, and semiconductor markets. With operations across North America, Europe, and Asia, G&H designs and manufactures advanced optical components, systems, and subsystems that enable some of the world’s most demanding applications.

As Senior Manager, Optical Fabrication, you will provide leadership for G&H’s optical manufacturing operations in Fremont, including precision optical fabrication and optical and metal coating deposition. Reporting to the Director of Operations, you will have responsibility for manufacturing performance across these critical production areas, driving safety, quality, yield, throughput, cycle time, cost, and on-time delivery. This is a senior, hands-on manufacturing leadership role requiring deep experience in optical fabrication and/or coating operations combined with the ability to lead teams, strengthen manufacturing capability, and drive sustained operational improvement.

You will work closely with Engineering, Quality, Production Planning, Facilities, Maintenance, and other functions to improve process stability and capacity, support new product and process introduction, and ensure the operation is positioned to meet current and future business requirements.

• Provide leadership across optical fabrication and coating operations, establishing priorities and accountability for safety, quality, yield, throughput, cycle time, cost, and on-time delivery.
• Translate business and customer requirements into manufacturing priorities, capacity and resource plans, partnering with Production Planning to proactively address constraints, WIP, labor, equipment, and production risks.
• Establish and monitor key manufacturing metrics, identify performance gaps and trends, and lead corrective actions to deliver sustained operational improvement.

• Lead continuous improvement across manufacturing operations using Lean, 6S, Kaizen and data-driven problem solving to improve flow, yield, productivity, equipment utilization, and process stability.
• Partner with Engineering and Quality to strengthen manufacturing processes, resolve complex production issues, and drive root-cause corrective actions and long-term process improvements.
• Lead manufacturing readiness for process transfers, new product introduction, equipment/process qualification, capacity expansion, and production ramps, ensuring appropriate staffing, training, documentation, and execution.

• Lead, coach, and develop production leaders, technicians, and operators, building organizational capability, accountability, succession depth, and a high-performance manufacturing culture.
• Assess organizational structure, staffing and skills against current and future production requirements and develop workforce and training plans to close capability gaps.
• Establish clear expectations and operating rhythms across manufacturing teams while promoting strong safety, quality, cleanroom, and compliance standards.

• Serve as a senior manufacturing partner to the Director of Operations and Fremont leadership team, providing visibility to manufacturing performance, risks, capacity constraints, and investment needs.
• Partner across Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Production Planning, Facilities, and Maintenance to align manufacturing priorities and resolve cross-functional issues affecting customer delivery and…