Director, Mechanical Automation & Hardware | Equity

Frontdoor Defense; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 355,000 - 400,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

401k

Relocation support

Flexible vacation

Equity

Job summary

Hadrian is seeking a Director of Mechanical Engineering to lead our team building autonomous manufacturing equipment in Torrance, CA. You will translate complex factory automation challenges into scalable hardware, mentoring engineers and delivering production-ready systems.

You will partner with controls, software, and manufacturing teams to push AI-enabled manufacturing capabilities, ensure safety, reliability, and rapid deployment across facilities.

Qualifications

• 12+ years designing automation equipment, test equipment or production machinery, including several years leading mechanical engineers.
• Proven record of delivering automation equipment from concept through commissioning on production lines.
• Deep mechanical design skills: mechanisms, fixtures, end-of-arm tooling, tolerance stacks, actuator sizing and machine safety.
• A record of growing engineers and earning the trust of the technicians and operators who build and run your designs.
• You use AI and other new tools in your own engineering workflow and push your team to try new ways of working.

Responsibilities

• Build, lead and grow the mechanical engineering team that designs Hadrian's automation equipment: hiring bar, leveling, mentoring and career growth.
• Deliver machines, fixtures, end-of-arm tooling and material handling from concept through build, commissioning and production run-in, and own how they perform on the floor.
• Set design standards and run design reviews covering CAD, drawings, GD&T, design for manufacture and assembly, and machine safety, so each new factory builds on the last.
• Stay hands-on: review designs, work through fixtures, mechanisms and cell layouts with your engineers, and make the hard technical calls.
• Decide what to design in house and what to buy, plan the equipment budget, and hold machine builders, vendors and integrators to the standard.
• Partner closely with controls, software, manufacturing and factory operations, and bring new tools, including AI, into how the team designs.

Job description

Hadrian is seeking a Director of Mechanical Engineering to lead our team building autonomous manufacturing equipment in Torrance, CA. You will translate complex factory automation challenges into scalable hardware, mentoring engineers and delivering production-ready systems.

You will partner with controls, software, and manufacturing teams to push AI-enabled manufacturing capabilities, ensure safety, reliability, and rapid deployment across facilities.