Director, Forward Deployed Engineering - Manufacturing at Hadrian Automation · LumiJobs

Responsibilities

Represent Hadrian with customers day to day: Own the technical relationship with customer engineering, program, and leadership teams. Run working sessions, present findings and recommendations, handle hard questions and pushback in the room, and follow up with clear, accurate written communication. Every interaction should leave the customer more confident in Hadrian.
Discover before you design: Embed with customers to observe their operations, map processes, constraints, and pain points, and interview stakeholders from the shop floor to program leadership. Build a clear, evidence-based picture of the real need before any solution is on the table.
Shape the solution: Fold what you learn into a solution that maximizes customer output and moves Hadrian toward what we are building. Hold an accurate picture of current capability and roadmap, and steer each engagement to the point where those two goals reinforce each other, favoring existing capabilities over new obligations.
Partner with Customer Programs: Operate on a dotted line to Customer Programs as their forward deployed engineering arm, bringing technical judgment into every engagement from first conversation through commitment.
Lead the forward deployed engineering team: Build, manage, and develop a technical team that engages directly with customers during new program scoping. Set the standard for how the team runs discovery, evaluates opportunities, and communicates with customers in a technical, credible, low-ego way.
Scope new customer engagements: Own the manufacturing scoping of new engagements: review requirements, drawings, specifications, tolerances, materials, and volumes, and define a manufacturing solution that Hadrian can commit to with confidence.
Evaluate before you promise: Bring a first-principles engineering mindset to every engagement. Understand the problem and the constraints before proposing or committing to a solution, so that what we sign up for is real and deliverable.
Hand off cleanly to Build Engineering: Ensure every commitment is scoped so that the Build Engineering organization can deliver it: clear product definition, make-vs-buy posture, process capability requirements, and a manufacturing plan that stands up to execution.
Drive leverage, not one-offs: Recognize recurring customer patterns and turn them into repeatable scoping approaches and reusable solution templates, so the function scales with the business instead of scaling headcount linearly.

Qualification

Bachelor's degree in MechanicalExperience in aerospaceExposure to precision machiningExperience working alongside sales

Required

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, Manufacturing, or a related engineering field and 8+ years of manufacturing or manufacturing engineering experience, or 12+ years of that experience without a degree.
3+ years managing technical teams (direct reports).
Experience in a customer-facing technical role (e.g., applications, field or sales engineering, program engineering, or consulting), including presenting technical recommendations to customer engineering and program leadership.
Proven ability to lead a technical team in a customer-facing capacity, translating between customer requirements and manufacturing reality.
Demonstrated ability to run structured customer discovery (site visits, process mapping, stakeholder interviews) and turn it into a defined technical solution.
Strong first-principles engineering judgment: able to evaluate and understand complex requirements before proposing or committing to solutions.
Fluency reading and interpreting engineering drawings, specifications, GD&T, and manufacturing process requirements.
Experience scoping or defining manufacturing work: DFM, make-vs-buy, process planning, tooling strategy, or production launch.

Preferred

Experience in aerospace, defense, maritime, or other high-complexity, high-mix manufacturing environments.
Background spanning both a scaling/startup environment and a mature manufacturing organization.
Exposure to precision machining, castings, forgings, sheet metal, or additive processes across metals and composites.
Experience working alongside sales, program management, or commercial teams on new customer engagements.
Exposure to manufacturing software and automation (MES/ERP, CAM automation, robotics, factory data systems), with a track record of feeding what you learn from customers back into product and automation roadmaps so those capabilities get built ahead of demand.
A track record of building repeatable systems and templates rather than solving each problem from scratch.

Director, Forward Deployed Engineering - Manufacturing

Responsibilities

Qualification

Required

Preferred

Benefits

Company

Hadrian Automation

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