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Hadrian is building autonomous factories to reindustrialize America by combining AI, advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing. The company helps aerospace and defense customers build rockets, satellites, aircraft, ships, and mission-critical systems up to 10x faster at significantly lower cost. Following a $1.37B Series D at $7.87B valuation, Hadrian is rapidly expanding manufacturing capabilities and scaling its Factory-as-a-Service platform.
The Forward Deployed team embeds engineers on Hadrian's largest, most critical programs with the U.S. Government, Armed Forces, and major defense primes. The team works alongside program teams from scoping through execution, adapting Hadrian's Opus AI-driven manufacturing autonomy platform to fulfill customer needs and sometimes taking products from zero to one. Learnings from forward-deployed work feed back to platform teams to improve Hadrian's product for all customers.
As Director of Forward Deployed Engineering, you will lead the technical side of one or more programs and own their technical outcomes. You'll run the technical aspects of programs larger than most startups, working directly with government, customer, and Hadrian leadership.
Key responsibilities:
- Own the technical roadmap and delivery, taking programs from initial ambiguous conversations to production. Decide what Opus covers, what gets built, and what to decline. Hold the team to a high execution bar on rate, quality, schedule, and cost.
- Bring program learnings to platform teams to improve products for all customers and determine which forward-deployed products should become part of Opus.
- Own executive relationships on the technical side. Serve as primary technical contact for customer program leadership, government stakeholders, and prime partners. Run technical reviews, have difficult scope and schedule conversations, and make calls when competing priorities have real commercial stakes.
- Build and lead the team. Hire and grow engineers, product managers, and designers. Set working standards and be available for their hardest scoping decisions.
- Stay hands-on. Early in programs, build v0 yourself. Later, review team work closely to ensure it meets Hadrian's quality bar.
Requirements:
- Demonstrated history leading engineering and product teams and scaling products from zero to one.
- Strong with external and internal executives. Must have owned senior customer relationships and made commitments on behalf of a company that you then delivered on.
- Excellent product judgment. Know what's worth building and what good looks like for users. Must have shipped end-to-end multiple times.
- Hands-on technical skills. Comfortable supporting your team with architecture and review as well as taking your own ideas from design to delivery.
- AI-native mindset. Use AI to compress discovery through execution. Can demonstrate concretely how AI already makes you multiples faster and have rebuilt how your team works around it.
- Proven ability to hire builders into ambiguous roles and get them productive quickly.
- Driven by mission and tempo. Rebuilding the industrial base matters to you, and you want to deliver at the pace customers need.
- U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, or eligible to obtain required ITAR authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.
What will set you apart:
- Founder or founding-team experience, especially if you ran customer relationships and business decisions while still building.
- Background in aerospace, defense, manufacturing, or anywhere hardware, software, and operations intersect.
- Forward deployed or solutions leadership experience at a product company.
