Director of Engineering, Forward Deployed Engineering

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 Forward Deployed team embeds on Hadrian's largest, most critical programs with the U.S. Government, the Armed Forces, and major defense primes, working alongside the Program team from scoping to execution. As Director, you lead the Forward Deployed team on one or more programs and own its technical outcomes.

Responsibilities

Own the technical roadmap and delivery, taking the program from the first ambiguous conversation to running in production, deciding what Opus covers, what gets built, and what is declined; Bring program learnings to platform teams and decide which Forward Deployed products should become part of Opus; Own the executive relationship on the technical side as the primary technical contact for customer program leadership, government stakeholders, and prime partners, running technical reviews and handling scope and schedule conversations; Build and lead the team by hiring and growing engineers, product managers, and designers on the program; Stay hands-on, building the v0 early in a program and reviewing what the team ships later on

Requirements

Highly commercial technical leader with excellent product judgement; Demonstrated history leading engineering and product teams and scaling a product from zero to one; Strong with external and internal executives, with experience owning senior customer relationships and delivering on commitments made on behalf of a company; Product taste, with knowledge of what is worth building and what good looks like for the user, and experience shipping end to end; Hands-on technical, comfortable supporting the team with architecture and review as well as taking ideas from design to delivery; AI-native, using AI to compress discovery to execution and able to show concrete productivity gains; Experience hiring builders into ambiguous roles and getting them productive fast; Driven by the mission and tempo of rebuilding the industrial base; U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State (ITAR)

Nice to have

Founder or founding-team experience, especially running customer relationships and business decisions while still building; Background in aerospace, defense, manufacturing, or where hardware, software, and operations meet; Forward deployed or solutions leadership at a product company

Benefits

Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans for employees; 401k; Relocation support may be provided for certain situations, based on business need; Flexible vacation policy; Equity