Director, Forward Deployed AI & Manufacturing

Hadrian Automation; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 360,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision, and life

Relocation support

Flexible vacation

Equity

Job summary

Hadrian is building autonomous factories and expanding across government and defense programs with its Opus AI-driven manufacturing autonomy platform. The Director, Forward Deployed leads the team on multi-billion-dollar programs, owning the technical roadmap and delivery, while working directly with government, customers, and Hadrian’s leadership.

We seek hands-on leaders who can scale a program from the first conversations to production, manage executive stakeholders, hire and mentor

Qualifications

• Highly commercial technical leaders with excellent product judgement.
• Demonstrated history lead engineering and product teams and scaling a product from zero to one.
• Strong with external and internal executives; owned senior customer relationships and commitments.
• Product taste; know what’s worth building and what good looks like for the user.
• Hands-on technically; comfortable with architecture and review as well as delivering ideas.
• AI-native mindset; use AI to accelerate discovery to execution across the team.
• Hired builders into ambiguous roles and set teams up for productive output.
• Driven by mission, tempo, and rebuilding the industrial base at pace.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical roadmap and delivery; take the program from ambiguity to production and define Opus coverage and scope.
• Convey program learnings to platform teams and decide which Forward Deployed products become part of Opus.
• Own the executive technical relationship; run technical reviews and manage scope, schedule, and commitments with leadership and partners.
• Build and lead the engineers, product managers, and designers on the program; set the standard for how they work.
• Remain hands-on when needed; ensure the team’s output meets Hadrian’s quality bar.

Skills

Technical leadership

Product judgment

Executive relationship management

Product sense

Hands-on architecture

AI-native approach

Hiring and team-building

Mission-driven pace

Job description

Hadrian is building autonomous factories and expanding across government and defense programs with its Opus AI-driven manufacturing autonomy platform. The Director, Forward Deployed leads the team on multi-billion-dollar programs, owning the technical roadmap and delivery, while working directly with government, customers, and Hadrian’s leadership.

We seek hands-on leaders who can scale a program from the first conversations to production, manage executive stakeholders, hire and mentor