Chief Engineer, Production & Sustainment

AeroVironment, Inc.; Petaluma (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 272,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

401K with company matching

9/80 work schedule

Holiday shutdown

Job summary

AeroVironment, Inc. seeks a Chief Engineer – Production to provide senior technical leadership for the production, sustainment, and lifecycle support of MUAS products.

Lead as the primary technical authority, ensuring safety, reliability, manufacturability, and compliance across programs. You will coordinate across engineering, operations, quality, supply chain, PM, and customer support to resolve complex issues.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering; 15+ years in aerospace, defense, unmanned systems, or related technical industry.
• Experience as technical lead or chief engineer or equivalent engineering authority.
• Experience with engineering change management, configuration management, requirements management, and product-baseline control.
• Strong cross-functional leadership and structured problem solving.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the senior technical authority for MUAS production and sustainment programs.
• Lead engineering support for products in production and deployed in the field.
• Drive resolution of complex technical issues involving design, integration, manufacturing, testing, reliability, quality, suppliers, and field performance.
• Lead multidisciplinary root-cause investigations and ensure effective corrective actions.
• Provide technical direction for engineering changes, deviations, waivers, nonconformances, and configuration-management activities.
• Coordinate with design, manufacturing, operations, quality, supply chain, PM, and customer-support organizations.
• Support production readiness, rate increases, first-article activities, qualification efforts, acceptance testing, and recurring production reviews.
• Mentor engineers and promote a culture of technical rigor and continuous improvement.

Skills

Technical leadership

Systems engineering

Cross-functional collaboration

Root-cause analysis

Communication skills

Decision making under risk

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor’s degree in engineering

Master’s degree in engineering or related field

Tools

AS9100/ISO 9001 knowledge

Job description

AeroVironment, Inc. seeks a Chief Engineer – Production to provide senior technical leadership for the production, sustainment, and lifecycle support of MUAS products.

Lead as the primary technical authority, ensuring safety, reliability, manufacturability, and compliance across programs. You will coordinate across engineering, operations, quality, supply chain, PM, and customer support to resolve complex issues.