Director of Manufacturing

About the role

Astro Mechanica is a vertically integrated aerospace company building a faster, more connected future. Our mission is to democratize high-speed flight by making supersonic travel flexible, accessible, and sustainable. We believe that rapid, on-demand, point-to-point global mobility will become the new standard for moving people and goods across the planet. To achieve this, we are integrating our advanced airframe and engine technologies-which include Duality™, our proprietary dual-use propulsion system-with a new flight operations model to make supersonic transport as efficient and economical as commercial air travel is today. In the near term, we are developing adaptable, high-speed systems to close aircraft performance gaps for the United States government. We're a team of passionate engineers dedicated to advancing aerospace. We're generalists with specialist depth, united by a flat structure and a shared obsession with building things that work well. We move fast, stay pragmatic, and let engineering excellence speak louder than hierarchy.

Responsibilities

• Lead the manufacturing function at Astro Mechanica, building the people, processes, and capabilities required to rapidly prototype and mature both airframe and propulsion hardware.
• Own manufacturing strategy across the vehicle, ensuring alignment between design intent, manufacturability, cost, and schedule from early concepts through flight hardware.
• Partner closely with airframe, propulsion, and systems engineering to drive build-aware design decisions, providing clear pushback when proposed solutions create unnecessary complexity, risk, or cost.
• Maintain high-level technical fluency across precision machining, fabrication, and propulsion assembly, as well as composites, bonded structures, and airframe integration, enabling informed trade studies and execution decisions.
• Establish and scale in-house manufacturing capabilities-including machine shop, composites, tooling, and assembly-appropriate for high-mix, low-volume aerospace development.
• Translate company-level priorities into actionable manufacturing plans, balancing speed, iteration, and long-term scalability.
• Drive cross-functional planning and execution, aligning engineering, test, supply chain, and leadership around build readiness and resource allocation.
• Build and lead a multidisciplinary manufacturing team, setting a high bar for technical excellence, ownership, and accountability.
• Develop lightweight but robust processes for quality, traceability, and configuration control that support rapid iteration without slowing progress.
• Provide leadership with clear visibility into manufacturing risks, costs, and schedules, helping guide tradeoffs and investment decisions as the company grows.
• Develop robust processes for quality, traceability, and throughput without compromising the speed and flexibility required in early-stage prototyping.
• Serve as the company's technical authority on build strategy, ensuring Astro Mechanica stays ahead in manufacturing capabilities as we evolve our propulsion systems and aircraft.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in aerospace or similarly complex hardware-driven environments, spanning manufacturing, engineering, or technical leadership roles.
• High-level knowledge of both:
• precision machining, fabrication, and propulsion or high-performance mechanical systems, and
• airframe structures, composites, or large integrated assemblies.
• Depth in one domain with credible fluency across the other is expected.
• Background as a strong design engineer, manufacturing engineer, or hands-on bu

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