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Salary: USD 166,000 - 220,000 / annual
Anduril Industries is seeking an Industrial Strategy Lead to join the Production Strategy & Operations (PS&O) team, the strategic operations arm that translates senior leadership's priorities into manufacturing execution. This role focuses on Industrial Development—the production M&A thesis, upstream funnel management, vertical integration review, and production-centric diligence.
You will serve as the production voice in Anduril's M&A process, evaluating whether acquisition targets strengthen, weaken, or create redundancy in Anduril's production base. This is not a traditional corporate development role focused on financial modeling or purchase agreements. Instead, you will develop the production thesis for why Anduril should acquire a company, run production-focused diligence that corporate development lacks the domain expertise to execute, and ensure acquired assets integrate into Anduril's manufacturing operations.
Key responsibilities include:
- Production M&A Thesis Development: Scan the defense industrial base and work with Division leaders to identify acquisition targets that fill production capability gaps—vertical integration opportunities, critical supplier consolidation, or capacity expansion. Build business cases grounded in manufacturing economics, not just revenue multiples.
- Diligence Leadership: Scope and lead production-focused diligence workstreams for active deals. Assess target manufacturing capabilities, production capacity, workforce quality, equipment condition, quality systems maturity, and supply chain health. Deliver clear go/no-go recommendations to corporate development and production leadership.
- Integration Handoff: Translate diligence findings into actionable integration plans. Coordinate with Anduril's M&A integration team on Day 0/Day 1 activities while owning production-specific integration risks (systems cutover, supplier transition, quality system harmonization).
- CorpDev Partnership: Serve as the primary PS&O interface to corporate development throughout the deal process. Complement their financial and legal diligence with operational and production assessment—you are the person who can tell CorpDev whether a factory can scale to 10x volume or if their quality system requires a $5M fix.
- Team Leadership: Lead a 2-person sub-team (Analyst + Production Diligence Specialist). Set diligence priorities, review work products, and develop junior team members.
This role sits at the intersection of M&A, manufacturing, and national security. You will work on-site at target facilities, in data rooms, and with target company operations leaders. You will present regularly to VP/SVP-level production leadership.
Requirements:
- 4–6 years of experience in corporate development, M&A, or strategic transactions, ideally at a defense prime or industrials company (L3Harris, RTX, Northrop, GD, Textron, etc.) where you've seen acquisitions from the operating company side, not just the financial side.
- Strong understanding of manufacturing operations and what makes a production facility valuable or a liability. You don't need to be an engineer, but you need to know the right questions to ask on a plant tour.
- Experience structuring and running diligence processes. You've built diligence plans, coordinated expert workstreams, and synthesized findings into decision-ready packages.
- Ability to build a thesis from ambiguous inputs. Comfort with incomplete information and iterating as you learn.
- Comfortable navigating cross-functional relationships across corporate development, supply chain, engineering, quality, and division production leadership.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Ideal backgrounds (in order of preference):
- CorpDev at a defense prime or diversified industrial: You've run acquisitions from inside an operating company and understand how deals fit into broader production strategy. You've done plant visits, managed integration PMOs, or assessed manufacturing synergies. (This is the sweet spot.)
- Defense-focused PE (mid-level): Associate or VP at a fund like Veritas Capital, Carlyle's A&D group, or similar. You've done operational diligence on defense/industrial targets and understand production risk assessment.
- Management consulting with M&A/operations focus: Post-MBA or equivalent from a firm with strong industrial practice (McKinsey, Bain, A&M). You've done commercial or operational diligence on manufacturing companies and want to move to the operating side.
