SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Salary: USD 170,000 - 220,000 / annual
Oklo is developing advanced fission power plants and nuclear fuel recycling technologies. The Director of Manufacturing Strategy will define how Oklo converts ambitious product and deployment plans into an executable manufacturing system, reporting to the Head of Supply Chain.
This hybrid technical and commercial strategy role requires deep manufacturing expertise combined with commercial fluency. The Director will integrate engineering judgment, supplier-market intelligence, commercial inputs, and strategic analysis to help Oklo achieve aggressive lead-time, cost, quality, and scalability goals.
Key responsibilities include:
- Own Oklo's enterprise manufacturing strategy, connecting product and deployment plans to executable manufacturing pathways across external suppliers and internal fabrication
- Lead cross-functional make-vs-buy analyses using technical feasibility, supplier capability, lead time, cost, quality, schedule risk, capital requirements, IP, and long-term scalability
- Build decision frameworks and provide supply-market intelligence for scenario modeling
- Partner with Responsible Engineers during first-of-a-kind (FOAK) builds to define supplier manufacturing strategies, review process plans, and identify manufacturability risks
- Assess suppliers' manufacturing processes, equipment, workforce, quality systems, special-process controls, qualification paths, and ability to meet production forecasts
- Translate supplier assessments into actionable technical recommendations for Engineering and capability guidance for Procurement
- Identify critical manufacturing constraints and fragile supply-chain nodes; develop mitigation options including alternate processes, supplier development, second sources, design changes, or selective insourcing
- Support technical vetting and due diligence of potential suppliers, including site visits, process reviews, and readiness assessments
- Develop industrialization and manufacturing-readiness roadmaps bridging FOAK builds to repeatable production
- Establish and track manufacturing-strategy metrics related to lead time, cost, quality, capacity, scalability, and risk retirement
- Provide leadership with concise recommendations, trade studies, and portfolio-level views of manufacturing readiness
- Create reusable standards, playbooks, and lessons learned
The role does not establish, manage, or operate factories; execution transitions to the internal fabrication organization. Procurement retains ownership of supplier commercial strategy, sourcing, negotiations, and contracting.
Travel: Approximately 25% to supplier and manufacturing sites and Oklo headquarters. Remote employees expected to travel to headquarters twice per quarter for team meetings and company events.
QUALIFICATIONS:
Minimum:
- Bachelor's degree in mechanical, manufacturing, industrial, materials, aerospace, nuclear, or closely related engineering discipline
- 10+ years of progressive experience in manufacturing engineering, industrialization, production engineering, supplier manufacturing, operations strategy, or related hardware-manufacturing field, including meaningful leadership responsibility
- Demonstrated ability to understand and evaluate manufacturing processes, process capability, tooling, qualification, yield, cycle time, throughput, capacity, quality controls, and production risk
- Experience supporting complex, low-volume or FOAK hardware through supplier selection, development, qualification, and transition toward repeatable production
- Experience leading make-vs-buy, manufacturing-footprint, capacity, cost, or industrialization analyses with cross-functional stakeholders
- Ability to combine incomplete technical, commercial, and schedule information into practical recommendations and clearly state assumptions, tradeoffs, risks, and decision points
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including ability to work effectively with Responsible Engineers, suppliers, procurement professionals, executives, and program leaders
- Willingness to travel to supplier sites, manufacturing locations, and Oklo headquarters as business needs require
Bonus:
- MBA, master's degree in engineering, or equivalent commercial, finance, corporate strategy, or business-development experience
- Experience in nuclear energy, aerospace, defense, semiconductors, energy systems, advanced industrial equipment, or another highly regulated hardware environment
- Direct experience across both technical manufacturing and commercial or strategic decision-making, including should-cost analysis, total-cost modeling, capacity investment cases, or supplier business assessments
- Experience with fabrication and special processes such as machining, welding, forming, casting, forging, additive manufacturing, heat treatment, coatings, nondestructive examination, or complex assembly
- Experience scaling from prototype or FOAK builds into low-rate initial production and higher-rate manufacturing
- Familiarity with nuclear-quality, export-control, or other regulated supply-chain requirements
