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Salary: USD 150,000 - 220,000 / annual
CHAOS Industries is a defense technology company founded in 2022 and backed by $1 billion in funding from top-tier investors including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company develops multi-product defense systems powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™) that serve warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams. CHAOS is headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, and London.
The Factory Operations Manager will own day-to-day execution of production operations within the CHAOS manufacturing facility in El Segundo. This is a people-management role leading a team of Factory Supervisors who in turn manage the technician workforce. The manager does not directly supervise individual technicians but is accountable for safely delivering production commitments across assembly, integration, test, and material flow.
Key responsibilities include:
**Daily Execution & Production Cadence**: Own factory execution against production schedule, output, quality, and delivery commitments. Drive daily production cadence including shift meetings, constraint identification, escalation, and recovery planning. Maintain visibility into work-in-progress, production status, blockers, labor capacity, and expected output.
**Supervisory Leadership & Workforce Management**: Lead and develop Factory Supervisors. Coordinate technician staffing, shift coverage, work assignments, overtime, and labor movement across production priorities. Build a culture of urgency, accountability, safety, quality, and disciplined execution.
**Cross-Functional Partnership**: Partner with Production Control to translate master production schedules into executable floor priorities. Work with Manufacturing and Production Engineering to ensure technicians execute approved build, integration, and test processes. Collaborate with Quality to maintain workmanship standards, inspection discipline, nonconformance handling, and production record completeness.
**Floor Discipline & Constraint Management**: Ensure production areas maintain appropriate safety, organization, material control, tooling, and 5S standards. Identify labor, equipment, material, process, or infrastructure constraints affecting factory output and drive resolution.
**Metrics & Production Scaling**: Establish and track factory operating metrics including throughput, schedule attainment, labor utilization, WIP aging, quality/yield, and rework. Support production ramp planning, shift expansion, factory layout changes, and introduction of new production lines or products.
The Factory Manager owns factory operations and execution through the supervisory layer. Manufacturing and Production Engineering retain ownership of technical processes, work instructions, tooling, and test methods. Product and program owners establish priorities; the Factory Manager determines how factory resources are deployed.
**Requirements**:
- 7+ years of experience in manufacturing or production operations, including 3+ years leading frontline production teams or supervisors
- Experience operating in aerospace, defense, electronics, automotive, industrial equipment, or another complex hardware manufacturing environment
- Demonstrated experience managing production across assembly, integration, test, or similarly complex manufacturing operations
- Strong understanding of production scheduling, WIP management, capacity planning, labor planning, and constraint management
- Experience using ERP/MRP and manufacturing execution systems to manage production
- Working knowledge of quality systems, configuration control, nonconformance processes, and production documentation
- Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced environment with changing priorities and incomplete information
- Strong floor presence and willingness to spend significant time directly with production teams
- Demonstrated ability to hold teams accountable while developing strong frontline leaders
- U.S. Citizenship (if required for program access)
**Preferred Requirements**:
- Experience scaling production from prototype or low-rate production into repeatable higher-volume manufacturing
- Aerospace or defense manufacturing experience
- Experience with IA9100/ISO 9001-aligned production environments
- Experience with electromechanical assembly, electronics integration, system-level test, or RF hardware
- Experience standing up new production lines, shifts, or manufacturing facilities
