Director, Launch Operations & Site Leadership

Firefly Aerospace, Inc.; Austin, Northern (TX, KY); Hybrid; USD 195,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental and vision plans

Educational reimbursement

Flexible PTO

Job summary

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. seeks a highly motivated leader to shepherd our fast-paced Launch Operations and Facilities team through each launch cycle.

A successful candidate enjoys leading multi-disciplinary teams to deep dive technical problems and is comfortable presenting to customers and leadership to ensure external needs are met. The role requires a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or related field, 5+ years of aerospace leadership, and strong communication skills.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Project Engineering or Aircraft Operations.
• Experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering and operations teams.
• 5+ years of aerospace leadership across complex systems.
• Strong communication skills in technical work environments.
• Experience with Atlassian products like Confluence & Jira.
• 5+ yrs running console operations for integrated vehicle and pad operations.
• Familiarity with version control systems like SVN, Bitbucket, etc
• Prior launch vehicle operations at test or launch facilities.
• Working knowledge of data viewing tools in Python, LabView, Matlab, etc.
• Experience in development and/or operations of launch vehicles.
• USG and Commercial launch proposal support.
• Familiarity with AFSPCMAN 91-710, RCC 319/324

Responsibilities

• Direct launch campaigns from pre-vehicle arrival pad preparations, integrated vehicle checkouts and on-pad launch operations.
• Lead daily tagups for vehicle and pad campaign operations to ensure pad and vehicle work is on track.
• Manage pad preventative maintenance team to maximize pad availability and reduce operational costs
• Identify opportunities to reduce launch campaign durations and scope
• Work with vehicle and operations teams to ensure all relevant procedures, documentation and tools are updated for vehicle or site upgrades
• Develop weekly operating rhythm to ensure pad maintenance, repairs and updates are on track to complete prior to vehicle arrival
• Work with program team to develop Integrated Master Schedule for the vehicle and pad operations for each flight
• Lead intermittent schedule status reviews with the Program Managers and executive leadership showing progress, forecast and schedule metrics
• Develop financial and resource budgets to meet program directed launch cadences and upgrades
• Participate or lead hiring activities for the launch operations and facility team members
• Coordinate with SLD/30 Safety Teams to guarantee deliverables, reviews and support for each mission
• Coordinate with on base Operations teams 2ROPS, 2SLS etc for each mission
• Ensure that all documentation, coordination, contracts, commodities and other required items are established and in place for each launch campaign

Skills

Leadership

Aerospace leadership

Multi-disciplinary teams

Communication

Launch operations

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering/Project Engineering/Aircraft Operations

Tools

Confluence

Jira

Python

LabVIEW

MATLAB

SVN

Bitbucket

Job description

Firefly Aerospace, Inc. seeks a highly motivated leader to shepherd our fast-paced Launch Operations and Facilities team through each launch cycle.

A successful candidate enjoys leading multi-disciplinary teams to deep dive technical problems and is comfortable presenting to customers and leadership to ensure external needs are met. The role requires a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or related field, 5+ years of aerospace leadership, and strong communication skills.