Workforce Programs Manager

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.

Hadrian is building the most advanced manufacturing platform in the world. As we win new programs and stand up new factories, the workforce question gets decided early, usually before a contract is signed and almost always before anyone has validated whether the labor assumptions hold. Getting that wrong means delayed milestones, unmet contractual obligations, and a workforce that cannot ramp to meet production.

Getting it right is a prerequisite for every program we take on.

We are looking for a Workforce Programs Manager to own the scoping of workforce for new Hadrian programs end to end. This is the person who sits with the sales and federal teams while a deal is still being shaped, reads the statement of work, and translates it into a labor model, a headcount plan, a training strategy, and a clear build-versus-partner decision.

It is a new function. You are the first hire in it, and it is tied directly to our program and factory expansion roadmap.

You will build the labor models that tell us what a program actually costs in people. You will design the training strategy for capabilities we have never run before, including regulated programs like NAVSEA-compliant welder workmanship and new NDT certification tracks. You will own the framework for what Hadrian builds internally versus what we source through partners, and you will manage the institutional partnerships that follow from that decision.

You will be the forward-looking input to the Workforce Development organization, working with the team on what is coming so they can scale ahead of demand instead of reacting to it.

The right person has been in the room where program commitments are made and understands what those commitments mean for the workforce before anyone else does. They are equally comfortable in a business development review with a prime contractor, building a headcount model in a spreadsheet, and walking a community college president through what a partnership would require. They default to building capability internally and treat partnerships as a deliberate tool, not a first response.

Program Workforce Scoping

• Embed with the sales and federal teams during program pursuit to scope workforce requirements before commitments are finalized

• Read and interpret statements of work, contract terms, and program milestones, and translate them into executable workforce plans

• Identify the labor, training, and certification obligations a program creates, and surface the risks and gaps while there is still time to address them

Labor Modeling and Headcount Planning

• Build labor models and headcount plans for new programs and capability expansions, covering Factory Technician, Weld Technician, and NDT Technician roles as well as the indirect and support headcount programs require

• Validate that labor assumptions in deal and operational models are internally consistent and flow through to real headcount outputs

• Own the workforce-cost view of a program and defend it to finance, operations, and program leadership

Training Strategy for New Capabilities

• Design the training and certification strategy for capabilities Hadrian has not run before, including regulated programs such as NAVSEA welder workmanship and new NDT method tracks

• Map external certification and audit requirements into the training plan so compliance is built in from the start

• Define cohort timing, trainer ratios, and lead times from hire to certified, working backward from program readiness dates

Build-versus-Partner Strategy and Partnerships

• Own the framework for determining whether a workforce need is best met by building internally or sourcing through an external partner, with a default toward in sourcing

• Manage the portfolio of institutional partnerships that follow from that decision, including community colleges, trade schools, universities, veteran programs, and high school pathways

• Represent Hadrian in partner negotiations, MOU development, and ongoing relationship management, and hold partners to defined quality and output standards

• Treat partnerships as foundational…