Director of Manufacturing

ABOUT US: 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. WHO WE ARE: 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. WHO YOU ARE: You are a builder at heart—someone who thrives at the intersection of advanced manufacturing, prototyping, and leadership. You’ve spent years working in high-mix, low-volume environments, where speed, precision, and adaptability are equally critical. You are hands-on with machines and tools, but equally skilled at building teams, processes, and shops that scale. You get energy from solving hard problems, bringing order to complexity, and enabling others to do their best work. You’re motivated by the idea of building something that has never been built before, and you’re excited to help shape the future of aerospace from the ground up. You may have started your career as a design or structures engineer, or grown into manufacturing leadership through hands-on technical work—but either way, you are fluent in both worlds. You are comfortable engaging deeply with engineering while grounding decisions in what it actually takes to build, test, and iterate hardware. You’re able to take a company-wide view of cost and schedule, working closely with engineering and senior leadership to think creatively about tradeoffs, unblock execution, and keep prototyping moving forward. You’re motivated by the idea of building something that has never been built before, and you’re excited to help shape the future of aerospace from the ground up. WHAT YOU’LL DO: - 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 l