Director, Manufacturing and Program Development Operations to lead the development, maturation, and execution of manufacturing capabilities for our optical clock quantum technologies and products. This important leadership role will be part of our Time & Frequency (T&F) business group within Quantum Sensing Solutions (QSS). This hands-on leader will own the operational bridge between advanced development and scalable production, partnering closely with Engineering, T&F leadership, Quality, Supply Chain, and QSS leadership to transform complex prototypes and emerging designs into robust, repeatable, manufacturable systems. Further, this position will be accountable for overseeing the production of these advanced systems.

The successful candidate will combine strong manufacturing, operations, and program leadership with the technical depth and adaptability required in an advanced- hardware development environment. They will establish the people, processes, infrastructure, metrics, and operating rhythms needed to support prototype builds, engineering development units, pilot production, product introduction, and eventual transition to sustained production.

This role requires a leader who is comfortable operating where processes are still being defined, designs are evolving, and successful execution depends on close integration between engineering and manufacturing. A successful candidate will lead and drive the our optical clock prototypes toward scalable and reliable, configuration control manufacturing.

Key Responsibilities

Advanced Manufacturing & Program Operations

Lead manufacturing operations supporting advanced development, prototype, engineering development, qualification, and pilot-production builds.

Establish and mature manufacturing processes capable of transitioning new technologies from laboratory and engineering environments into repeatable production.

Develop the manufacturing strategy, operating model, staffing plan, equipment roadmap, and infrastructure required to support program and product objectives.

Own execution of build schedules, manufacturing readiness, capacity planning, resource allocation, and day-to-day production priorities.

Create scalable operating processes appropriate to both low-volume/high-complexity development builds and future production growth.

Establish clear ownership, accountability, and operating cadence across manufacturing activities.

New Product Introduction and Production Readiness

Partner with engineering teams early in the product lifecycle to influence design for manufacturability, assembly, testability, reliability, and serviceability.

Lead manufacturing readiness reviews and ensure appropriate maturity of bills of material, routings, work instructions, tooling, test equipment, training, and material availability prior to builds.

Establish disciplined processes for prototype-to-production transitions, including New Product Introduction (NPI) gates, build readiness criteria, lessons learned, and closure of manufacturing risks.

Drive development of repeatable assembly, integration, test, inspection, and acceptance processes.

Identify manufacturing constraints early and lead cross-functional actions to resolve them.

Ensure effective transition of mature products and processes into sustained production organizations when appropriate.

Manufacturing Engineering and Process Development

Provide leadership and direction for manufacturing engineering activities supporting advanced development.

Drive process definition, documentation, characterization, validation, and continuous improvement.

Establish appropriate manufacturing standards, process controls, tooling strategies, and production methods.

Lead development of production equipment, fixtures, workstations, and manufacturing test capabilities.

Ensure calibration, preventive maintenance, configuration, and operational readiness of pilot-line and manufacturing equipment.

Apply lean manufacturing, structured problem solving, and statistical methods where appropriate to improve quality, throughput, and predictability.

Operational Performance

Establish and manage key manufacturing metrics, including schedule performance, first-pass yield, quality, cycle time, labor efficiency, throughput, material availability, and cost.

Build operational dashboards and review mechanisms that provide timely visibility into performance, risks, constraints, and corrective actions.

Drive root-cause analysis and corrective action for manufacturing and development issues.

Develop capacity and labor models to support program schedules, business planning, and future production requirements.

Identify opportunities to reduce manufacturing cost and complexity while protecting product performance and quality.

Create a culture of disciplined execution and continuous improvement.

Cross-Functional Leadership

Work closely with Engineering, QSS/T&F leadership, Product Management, Quality, Supply Chain, Finance, Facilities, and other stakeholders to achieve program objectives.

Integrate manufacturing plans with program schedules, engineering milestones, material requirements, and customer commitments.

Partner with Supply Chain to establish sourcing strategies, identify long-lead and high-risk components, and mitigate material constraints.

Collaborate with Quality to establish inspection, traceability, nonconformance, configuration-control, and corrective-action processes appropriate to product maturity and customer requirements.

Clearly communicate manufacturing status, risks, resource needs, tradeoffs, and recovery plans to executive and program leadership.

Organizational Leadership

Build, lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing manufacturing organization capable of supporting both rapid development and disciplined execution.

Define organizational structure, roles, responsibilities, and capability requirements as the Advanced Development portfolio grows.

Recruit and develop manufacturing leaders, engineers, technicians, planners, and other operations personnel as required.

Establish a culture emphasizing safety, quality, accountability, teamwork, technical rigor, urgency, and continuous improvement.

Develop team members and create clear pathways for increasing responsibility and technical or leadership growth.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, manufacturing, operations, physics, or a related technical discipline.
• Typically 12+ years of relevant manufacturing, operations, or product-development experience, including significant leadership responsibility.
• Demonstrated experience leading manufacturing operations for complex, highly engineered hardware.
• Experience taking products or technologies from prototype or engineering development through NPI, pilot production, and production readiness.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing engineering, production planning, configuration management, quality systems, supply chain, and operational execution.
• Demonstrated ability to build manufacturing processes and organizations in environments where infrastructure and operating systems are still maturing.
• Experience managing multidisciplinary technical and operations teams.
• Strong analytical and structured problem-solving capabilities.
• Ability to establish meaningful operational metrics and use data to drive decisions and improvements.
• Demonstrated success operating cross-functionally with engineering, program management, quality, and supply chain organizations.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively with technical teams and executive leadership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in engineering, operations, or business.
• Experience with precision electromechanical, optical, photonic, vacuum, RF, atomic, semiconductor, aerospace, defense, or other highly complex technical systems.
• Experience in low-volume manufacturing environments with demanding performance and traceability requirements.
• Experience establishing or scaling pilot manufacturing lines.
• Knowledge of design-for-manufacturing and design-for-assembly methodologies.
• Experience with ERP/MRP, MES, PLM, configuration-management, and manufacturing data systems.
• Familiarity with Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, or related operational improvement methodologies.
• Experience operating in environments subject to government contracting, export-control, cybersecurity, or rigorous customer quality requirements.
• Experience supporting products requiring sophisticated integration, calibration, verification, and acceptance testing.

Benefits

• Salary Range: per year 190000 - 210000
• 100% company-paid medical, dental, vision, short/long-term disability
• Employer-funded Health Savings Account
• Unlimited PTO
• 401(k) match
• Company-paid Life and AD&D Insurance
• Flexible Savings Account
• Paid FMLA, Maternity/Paternity Leave
• Employee Assistance Program
• Student Loan Repayment
• Equity Program