Arsenal-1 Operations Lead

Anduril Industries; Costa Mesa (CA); On-site; USD 146,000 - 194,000; Full time

Job summary

Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa is seeking an Arsenal-1 Operations Lead to connect Arsenal-1 in Ohio with our California headquarters. This generalist operator will partner with the VP of Production and SVP of Production to manage strategic projects, refine processes, and drive cross-functional execution.

You will navigate program management, engineering, finance, and production teams to align incentives and operational goals while delivering high‑impact results for a rapidly expanding business

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in consulting, operations, finance, or product/program management.
• Demonstrated expertise in stakeholder and executive engagement with high C-suite visibility.
• Strong emotional intelligence and ability to solve operational problems with a people-centric approach.
• Excellent cross-functional relationship building across company functions including hardware engineering.
• Self-driven, proactive, able to move quickly and handle multiple priorities.
• Ability to structure ambiguity with frameworks and drive structured decisions.
• Clear, broad communication across engineers, partners, recruiters, and executives.

Responsibilities

• Execute strategic priorities and run special projects for Arsenal‑1 VP of Production.
• Serve as the primary contact between the Ohio plant and California HQ.
• Address strategic problems with first-principles thinking and cross-functional analysis.
• Collaborate with finance, talent, legal, and government relations to operationalize Ohio incentives.

Skills

5+ years experience in consulting/ops/

Executive stakeholder engagement

Emotional intelligence

Cross-functional collaboration

Self-driven/proactive

Structured problem framing

Effective communication across roles

US Person for export control access

Job description

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

ABOUT THE JOB

We are hiring an Arsenal-1 Operations Lead to join Anduril at our Costa Mesa headquarters. This generalist operator will act as the connective tissue between Arsenal-1, our hyperscale manufacturing facility in Ohio, and our headquarters in California. Operations Leads at Anduril work directly with General Managers, Division leadership teams, and other Anduril leaders to manage operations for a business line or central function. In this case, you will work closely with the Vice President leading Arsenal-1 and the Senior Vice President leading production for all of Anduril. Work within this role includes quick-turn operational fire‑fighting, redesigning and implementing processes, and leading high-impact strategic projects. This role will require you to understand the levers required to effectively run a business, including engagement across program management, engineering, production, and central G&A teams. Arsenal‑1 began life at Anduril as an empty logistics warehouse in January 2025. Now in the second half of 2026, it’s home to an active production line for our Fury autonomous air vehicle with many more production launch projects underway. In 2027 and beyond, we plan to build and occupy more than four million additional square feet of industrial capacity.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Work directly for our Arsenal‑1 Vice President of Production, executing their strategic priorities and running special projects. Partner with production leadership, business lines, and facilities to build our roadmap for Arsenal‑1 in Ohio.
• Be the connective tissue between our plant in Ohio and our headquarters in California. You will become a knowledgeable and effective first point of contact for staff in both locations on all matters related to Arsenal‑1.
• Work on strategic problems, provide structure to ambiguity and help shepherd cross‑functional groups of stakeholders towards decisions on strategic issues. The role will ask you to couple first principles thinking with creative and iterative analysis to fully detail the impacts of potential decisions.
• Operationalize our Ohio incentives: work cross‑functionally with finance and accounting, business lines, talent acquisition, legal, government relations, and external professional services to run operational processes that capture the full value of incentives negotiated with government entities across the United States.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ years of working experience with experience in consulting, operations, finance, or product/program management role.
• Demonstrated expertise in stakeholder and executive engagement, this role will have significant C‑suite visibility. You should be comfortable and skilled in balancing when to pull in execs into the problem solving process and when your should lead independent change
• You lean into acknowledging your weaknesses and take the idea of feedback and growth seriously.
• Strong emotional intelligence and ability to solve operational problems not only from a data‑driven lens, but also in a people‑centric way by building strong cross functional relationships across the company and within the hardware engineering organization.
• You are self‑driven and relentlessly proactive. You don’t need someone to tell you to “move”. You just move. We’d rather have to tell you to slow down than to speed up.
• You don’t wait on others to solve problems. You proactively step into the gap to offer solutions yourself.
• You enjoy working at a place where no one minds if you leave early one day to go to an appointment or run an errand, but you also don’t mind responding to Slacks in the evening while you’re watching Netflix.
• You have an appetite to build clear frameworks to structure problems.
• Combined ability to execute on a tactical level as well as put together a strategy to solve complex, ambiguous, cross‑functional problems. You are comfortable rolling up your sleeves and diving deep into executing operational tasks that require high attention to detail and high organization skills, but you can also zoom out at a 30,000 foot level to create a strategy that solves high level problems for the business line, division, and company.
• A strong communicator across a wide dynamic range - Ability to translate and articulate thoughts clearly and simply across a wide range of roles (working level engineers, finance partners, recruiters, cross functional leadership, and executives).
• High ownership with the horsepower to juggle multiple large projects and priorities in parallel, at a rapid pace, and report out on progress regularly without dropping any balls.
• Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities

US Salary Range

$146,000 — $194,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top‑tier benefits for full‑time employees, including:

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.

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