Director / Sr. Manager of Pilot Manufacturing Operations at Mainspring Energy, Inc. in Menlo Park, CA

Driven by our vision of the affordable, reliable, net-zero carbon grid of the future, Mainspring has developed a new category of power generation — the linear generator — that delivers onsite, fuel-flexible power to help accelerate the transition to the future grid.

The unique combination of attributes offered by Mainspring’s linear generator enables applications on both the customer and utility sides of the meter for the $750B global electricity equipment market. Mainspring began pilot customer installations in 2020 and plans its full commercial launch in 2021 with Fortune 100 customers and partnerships with top-tier utilities.

We are looking to build relationships with people who share our values:

• Pragmatic Optimism. Building a new category of world-class power generation requires the optimism of ambition and creativity, balanced with practicality to solve problems efficiently. The challenges that arise are opportunities for growth.
• Excellence without Ego. We bring expertise and commitment to creating the best customer experience, from sales to deployment and service, just as we apply deep technical rigor to building and delivering world-class products. We strive for excellence and behave as leaders with the humility to acknowledge our challenges, both collectively and as individual contributors.
• Proactive Collaboration. The integration and cross-disciplinary nature of Mainspring’s business requires intentionally seeking out others who bring different skills, perspectives, and priorities. Our culture of inclusion and respect extends beyond our team to interactions with our partners and customers.

Responsibilities

Mainspring Energy is seeking a Manufacturing lead for our brand-new pilot factory in Menlo Park, California. As the lead of this new facility, you will provide leadership and drive results to successfully deliver Mainspring linear generator units to customers all across the country and continuously work on the scaling up of all processes to ensure success of large-scale volume production with external contract manufacturing partners.

This will include setting-up the facility and equipment in close coordination with the NPI team, recruiting and organizing the workforce, identifying and implementing policies, procedures and training strategies to progressively increase the throughput of the production line and optimize its efficiency.

This position is hands-on and requires strong production and change management skills with a results-driven mindset and an ability to work cross-disciplinarily with different departments: NPI, supply-chain, quality, and engineering.

• Own the pilot manufacturing line and be accountable for its throughput
• Hire and organize direct and indirect workforce needed to meet production goals
• Implement and optimize training program of the workforce at all levels
• Evaluate and implement meaningful KPI and metrics across the organization
• Ensure production goals are achieved including productivity, quality & cost
• Set-up, maintain and track equipment and tools needed to achieve production goals while always optimizing for cost and safety
• Actively contribute to the scaling of manufacturing processes utilizing, whenever possible, the pilot manufacturing line as a proof-point

Qualifications

• Demonstrated success leading a team to achieve challenging goals in a manufacturing environment
• Extensive experience in lean manufacturing and continuous improvements
• Able to think both strategically and practically to overcome immediate challenges, without losing sight of long-term goals
• Excellence at interfacing successfully with various departments and at all levels
• Proven ability to set-up, evaluate, and improve production and operations processes
• Excellent attention to detail, flexible, and capable to manage a high number of changes
• Experience with ERP and MES systems, including implementation and effective utilization across all levels of the organization to track progress and traceability
• Bilingual in English and Spanish and willingness to travel to Mexico is a plus