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Hadrian is building autonomous factories to reindustrialize America by combining AI, advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing to help aerospace and defense companies build rockets, satellites, aircraft, ships, and other mission-critical systems up to 10x faster and at significantly lower cost. The company recently raised $1.37B in Series D funding at a $7.87B valuation and is rapidly expanding manufacturing capabilities across welding, casting, forging, electronics, and additive manufacturing.
The Forward Deployed team embeds engineers on Hadrian's largest, most critical programs with the U.S. Government, the Armed Forces, and major defense primes. These teams work alongside program teams from scoping through execution, adapting Hadrian's Opus AI-driven manufacturing autonomy platform to fulfill customer needs and sometimes building new products from zero to one. Learnings from forward-deployed work feed back to platform teams to improve Hadrian's product for all customers.
As Senior Director of Forward Deployed Engineering, you will lead the technical side of one or more programs and own their technical outcomes. You'll work directly with government stakeholders, customer leadership, and Hadrian's executive team on multi-billion-dollar programs. Key responsibilities include:
- Owning the technical roadmap and delivery: take programs from initial ambiguous conversations to production, decide what Opus covers versus what gets built custom, and maintain a high execution bar. You ensure programs hit rate, quality, schedule, and cost targets through solid software and systems.
- Bringing program learnings to platform teams: share insights to improve Hadrian's product for all customers and determine which forward-deployed products should become part of Opus.
- Owning 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.
- Building and leading the team: hire and grow engineers, product managers, and designers on your program. Set standards for how they work and help them navigate hard scoping decisions.
- Staying 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; owned senior customer relationships and made commitments you delivered on
- Excellent product judgment; know what's worth building and what good looks like, backed by end-to-end shipping experience
- Hands-on technical skills: comfortable supporting teams with architecture and review, and taking ideas from design to delivery yourself
- AI-native mindset: use AI to compress discovery through execution, demonstrate concrete ways it makes you multiples faster, and have rebuilt team workflows around it
- Experience hiring builders into ambiguous roles and getting them productive quickly
- Driven by mission and tempo; rebuilding the industrial base matters to you
WHAT SETS YOU APART:
- Founder or founding-team experience, especially running customer relationships and business decisions while still building
- Background in aerospace, defense, manufacturing, or roles where hardware, software, and operations intersect
- Forward-deployed or solutions leadership at a product company
ITAR REQUIREMENT: Must be a U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.
