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Salary: USD 229,500 - 302,500 / annual
Skydio is the leading U.S. drone manufacturer and world leader in autonomous flight technology. The company serves defense, public safety, and enterprise customers with solutions ranging from utility inspection to tactical ISR. Skydio has committed $3.5 billion over five years to expand U.S. manufacturing through its SkyForge initiative, including a new factory five times larger than current capacity and over $1 billion directed to domestic suppliers.
In this role, you will spearhead the SkyForge initiative and drive Skydio's strategic transformation into a world-class manufacturing company with secure, compliant domestic supply chains. You will navigate complex regulatory frameworks including NDAA restrictions, the Blue UAS Cleared List, DDP Supply Chain Framework, FCC Covered List requirements, and Section 232 tariffs.
Key responsibilities include:
- Regulatory Partnership: Work closely with the regulatory team to understand current regulations and policy direction, and engage directly with key policy partners to help shape industry standards.
- Supply Chain & Manufacturing Strategy: Determine which capabilities and technologies to onshore, vertically integrate, or partner on to build robust and compliant supply chains.
- Onshoring & Supplier Development: Set priorities for securing and onshoring supply across critical commodities. Where domestic or allied supply bases don't exist, decide whether to develop suppliers (including through SkyForge), bring work in-house, or design around constraints.
- Make-versus-Buy & Vertical Integration: Assess which production should move into U.S. facilities and build the business case with Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Finance teams.
- Product Compliance Risk: Maintain an evidence-backed view of each product line's regulatory standing and translate it into schedule, revenue, and cost terms for leadership.
- Supplier-of-Record Decisions: Work with Global Supply Managers and hardware engineering during new product introduction to set SPOR, bringing regulatory screening into design reviews early.
- Multi-Tier Traceability: Stand up bill-of-materials traceability to tier three and beyond, with country of origin and chain of custody tracking.
- Compliance & Cost Optimization: Find moves that serve compliance, tariff, and domestic-content goals simultaneously.
Success milestones include: 90 days—complete risk baseline across products and regulations with named owners for gaps; 3 months—approved sourcing and supplier-development plan with first vertical integration recommendation and compliance screening in design reviews; 6 months—no product launch surprised by compliance gaps, with onshoring investments prioritized by competitive advantage.
You will report to the Head of Hardware Operations as an individual contributor with a path to building a small team as the program grows. You will have regular visibility to the leadership team on SkyForge progress and will inform capital-allocation decisions.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 10+ years in supply chain, manufacturing operations, commodity management, or operations strategy, including at least 3 years in a regulated hardware environment where sourcing decisions carried legal or contractual consequences.
- Experience influencing component and supplier selection during design, through NPI, design reviews, or SPOR and approved vendor list (AVL) decisions.
- Credibility with both sourcing organizations and factories; fluency in discussing capacity, tooling, and yield.
- Accountable ownership of a multi-tier country-of-origin, supplier compliance, or trade compliance program.
- A make-versus-buy or vertical integration analysis personally built and defended, including capex and ramp assumptions.
- Track record of turning technical findings into executive decisions and changing engineering or sourcing decisions without formal authority.
- FAA Part 107 certification required within the first 60 days of employment.
PREFERRED:
- Working knowledge of NDAA §889/§848, country-of-origin and substantial-transformation analysis, Buy American domestic-content tests, or DFARS and FAR flow-downs.
- Background in in-house manufacturing, UAS, aerospace and defense, defense electronics, or EMS and contract manufacturing.
- Commodity experience in batteries and cells, motors and magnetics, imaging or thermal sensors, or PCB and PCBA.
- Experience standing up a production line or bringing an outsourced process in-house.
- Experience with Blue UAS or Green UAS submissions, or DCMA or DCSA assessments.
- Experience developing domestic or allied-country suppliers from scratch.
About Skydio
Defense / GovTech; Industrial — autonomous drones for defense, public safety, and enterprise.
