Manufacturing Engineer, Additive; DED

Position: Manufacturing Engineer, Additive (DED)
Hadrian - Manufacturing the Future

Hadrian is building autonomous factories that help aerospace and defense companies manufacture rockets, satellites, jets, and ships up to 10x faster and up to 2x cheaper. By combining advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing, we are reinventing how America produces its most critical parts.

We're accelerating our mission with the launch of Factory 3 in Mesa, Arizona, a 290,000-square-foot facility creating 350 new jobs. We are expanding rapidly to support thousands of future hires, launching Hadrian Maritime to expand into naval production, and introducing a Factory-as-a-Service model that delivers complete systems instead of individual parts.

Hadrian is backed by leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz, our fast-growing team is united around reindustrializing American manufacturing for the 21st century and beyond.

The Role:

Join us in shaping the future of aerospace and defense manufacturing. As an Additive Manufacturing Engineer - Applications focused on Directed Energy Deposition (DED), you will serve as a technical bridge between customer requirements and production-ready DED manufacturing solutions. You will work closely with customers and internal teams to evaluate part feasibility, guide Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), support process development, and help scale DED programs from early engagement through qualification and production.

This is a hands-on, customer-facing engineering role at the intersection of applications engineering, manufacturing execution, and process development. You will help solve real-world DED manufacturing challenges, convert those solutions into repeatable manufacturing methods, and support the successful launch of high-impact aerospace and defense programs.

What You'll Do:

• Customer Technical Support & Requirements Capture: Support technical engagement with customers by gathering requirements, clarifying design intent, and translating program needs into actionable manufacturing plans that align customer requirements with feasible DED manufacturing solutions.
• Program Feasibility & Application Development: Evaluate part and program fit for DED, identify technical risks, and support new application development, process selection, and manufacturing planning for critical hardware and production opportunities.
• DfAM & Design Reviews: Provide DfAM guidance specific to DED, including deposition strategy, feature design, access constraints, heat input considerations, distortion risk, machining stock, and post-processing-aware design decisions.
• Manufacturing Workflow & Build Planning: Define and optimize manufacturing workflows across design, deposition, post-processing, inspection, and certification, while supporting toolpath strategy, setup planning, and production readiness.
• DED Process Development & Industrialization: Partner with internal process and manufacturing teams to develop, mature, and industrialize DED capabilities, including equipment readiness, process windows, parameter refinement, and transition from development to repeatable production.
• Robustness, Repeatability & Process Improvement: Identify and drive improvements that make DED platforms and workflows more robust and repeatable based on machine behavior, deposition quality, process data, nonconformance trends, and production performance.
• Materials & Process Integration: Work closely with materials and quality teams to evaluate weldability, heat input effects, residual stress, mechanical performance, geometric accuracy, and surface condition to refine process parameters and manufacturing guidance for high-performance alloys.
• Post-Processing & Secondary Operations Integration: Coordinate across stress relief, heat treat, HIP where applicable, machining, inspection, and finishing to ensure end-to-end manufacturability and downstream process alignment.
• Qualification & Validation Execution: Support qualification planning, validation builds, coupons, test plans, NDT strategy, acceptance criteria definition, first article activities, and data package development required for customer approval and…