Head of Manufacturing

Arbor Energy; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

Health insurance

Unlimited PTO

Annual learning stipend

Earth Day holidays

Job summary

Arbor Energy is seeking a Head of Manufacturing to build the systems, processes, and partnerships that will take our hardware from development builds to repeatable production. This is a hands-on leadership role blending strategy with practical industrialization and build challenges.

Based at Arbor Energy’s headquarters in El Segundo, CA, this role requires regular in-person work at HQ, test sites, supplier locations, and future facilities.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in manufacturing, industrialization, production engineering, or operations for complex hardware systems, including meaningful leadership responsibility.
• Experience taking first-of-a-kind or early-stage hardware from prototype or first article into repeatable production.
• Experience building manufacturing systems from the ground up, including process design, facility planning, supplier strategy, production systems, and operating cadence.
• Production or production-intent experience with additive manufacturing, including qualification, inspection, repeatability, yield, and downstream process integration.
• Strong working knowledge of machining, fabrication, welding, assembly, test, quality systems, and production readiness for complex hardware.
• Experience evaluating and implementing make-versus-buy, vertical-integration, and manufacturing-partner decisions.
• Ability to build cost, capacity, and capital models and connect manufacturing choices to technical, commercial, and company milestones.
• Strong cross-functional leadership and communication skills, including the ability to make complex manufacturing tradeoffs clear to technical and executive audiences.
• Comfort working hands-on in an early-stage environment while building the processes, partnerships, and team needed to scale.

Responsibilities

• Develop and lead Arbor's manufacturing strategy and scale-up roadmap from development builds through repeatable production.
• Translate product and system designs into practical manufacturing plans that improve manufacturability, cost, quality, reliability, serviceability, and production readiness.
• Evaluate and recommend make-versus-buy, vertical-integration, supplier, manufacturing-partner, and facility strategies as Arbor grows.
• Lead the production strategy for critical components, including additive manufacturing, machining, post-processing, inspection, qualification, and downstream integration.
• Establish approaches for process qualification, repeatability, yield improvement, and cost reduction across production-critical workflows.
• Build ramp and capacity plans covering equipment, tooling, staffing, supplier readiness, qualification cycles, inventory, spares, throughput, and project-delivery needs.
• Implement the production systems, work instructions, quality controls, traceability, configuration management, and change-control practices appropriate for each stage of scale.
• Coordinate an integrated manufacturing plan across Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, Finance, Facilities, test operations, suppliers, and manufacturing partners.
• Build manufacturing cost and capacity models, and partner with Finance to translate equipment, facility, supplier, and staffing needs into phased capital and operating plans.
• Create a clear operating cadence for manufacturing, surface tradeoffs early, and bring decision-ready recommendations to company leadership.
• Help define Arbor's manufacturing organization and priority capability gaps, building the team and partner network as production needs grow.

Job description

At Arbor Energy & Resources Corporation (\"Arbor Energy\"), we’re creating technology to power our lives while protecting the planet that sustains them. Our advanced power systems deliver clean, reliable baseload electricity with zero operating emissions—modular, fuel-flexible, and engineered for the realities of today’s energy demand. At the core is a supercritical CO₂ turbine with integrated carbon capture, designed to bring carbon‑neutral power online quickly at meaningful scale.

Our team includes aerospace engineers, combustion experts, and systems thinkers with a shared goal: to build technology worthy of the world we want to live in. While many of us began our journeys looking to the stars, we’re applying that expertise here at home to deliver dependable, emission‑free baseload power and a future of lasting abundance.

If you share our values and are drawn to rigorous work with lasting impact, we’d love to learn more about you. Come build what the future will run on.

Steward our planet: We build for tomorrow, ensuring every bolt we tighten and every hand we lend leaves our environment stronger than we found it.

Lead with Love: We champion the success of our people, partners, and planet, nurturing excellence through camaraderie and rigor.

Explore the Uncharted: We embrace the unknown with curiosity, using courage and discipline to transform uncertainty into opportunity.

Role Overview

We are looking for a Head of Manufacturing to build the systems, processes, and partnerships that will take our hardware from development builds to repeatable production. This is a hands‑on, 0 to 1 leadership role for someone who can develop the manufacturing strategy while staying close to the practical industrialization and build challenges required to execute it.

You’ll lead the development and execution of Arbor’s manufacturing roadmap across critical component production, subassemblies, skid and module assembly, integration, and final system delivery. Working closely with engineering, you’ll translate novel system designs into a scalable manufacturing approach.

You’ll help create the manufacturing model, make grounded recommendations about where and how work should occur, and establish the operating discipline Arbor needs for its next stage of growth.

This role is based at Arbor’s headquarters in El Segundo, CA, and requires regular in‑person work at HQ, test site (in San Bernardino, CA), supplier and manufacturing‑partner locations, and future facilities. Travel will evolve with the company’s manufacturing footprint and project needs.

Responsibilities

• Develop and lead Arbor's manufacturing strategy and scale‑up roadmap from development builds through repeatable production.
• Translate product and system designs into practical manufacturing plans that improve manufacturability, cost, quality, reliability, serviceability, and production readiness.
• Evaluate and recommend make‑versus‑buy, vertical‑integration, supplier, manufacturing‑partner, and facility strategies as Arbor grows.
• Lead the production strategy for critical components, including additive manufacturing, machining, post‑processing, inspection, qualification, and downstream integration.
• Establish approaches for process qualification, repeatability, yield improvement, and cost reduction across production‑critical workflows.
• Build ramp and capacity plans covering equipment, tooling, staffing, supplier readiness, qualification cycles, inventory, spares, throughput, and project‑delivery needs.
• Implement the production systems, work instructions, quality controls, traceability, configuration management, and change‑control practices appropriate for each stage of scale.
• Coordinate an integrated manufacturing plan across Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, Finance, Facilities, test operations, suppliers, and manufacturing partners.
• Build manufacturing cost and capacity models, and partner with Finance to translate equipment, facility, supplier, and staffing needs into phased capital and operating plans.
• Create a clear operating cadence for manufacturing, surface tradeoffs early, and bring decision‑ready recommendations to company leadership.
• Help define Arbor's manufacturing organization and priority capability gaps, building the team and partner network as production needs grow.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in manufacturing, industrialization, production engineering, or operations for complex hardware systems, including meaningful leadership responsibility.
• Experience taking first‑of‑a‑kind or early‑stage hardware from prototype or first article into repeatable production.
• Experience building manufacturing systems from the ground up, including process design, facility planning, supplier strategy, production systems, and operating cadence.
• Production or production‑intent experience with additive manufacturing, including qualification, inspection, repeatability, yield, and downstream process integration.
• Strong working knowledge of machining, fabrication, welding, assembly, test, quality systems, and production readiness for complex hardware.
• Experience evaluating and implementing make‑versus‑buy, vertical‑integration, and manufacturing‑partner decisions.
• Ability to build cost, capacity, and capital models and connect manufacturing choices to technical, commercial, and company milestones.
• Strong cross‑functional leadership and communication skills, including the ability to make complex manufacturing tradeoffs clear to technical and executive audiences.
• Comfort working hands‑on in an early‑stage environment while building the processes, partnerships, and team needed to scale.

Preferred Qualifications

• Relevant experience in turbomachinery, rotating equipment, pressure systems, energy hardware, aerospace, propulsion, industrial process equipment, or similarly demanding hardware environments.
• Manufacturing environments involving additive processes, machining, post‑processing, welding, skidded systems, piping, electrical integration, and system‑level test.
• Early‑stage or high‑growth companies where you remained close to the work while building the function.
• Pre‑IPO stock options
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance (Arbor covers 90% for employees)
• Basic life insurance fully covered
• Health savings account (HSA) with matching
• Flexible savings account (FSA)
• Unlimited PTO
• 12+ company holidays, including Earth Day!
• 401(k)
• Annual learning and development stipend
• And more!

Base Pay: $200 - $220K USD/year. The salary is subject to the applicant's skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location.

Our Commitment

Arbor Energy is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. Solving global energy challenges requires a wide range of perspectives and experiences, and we are committed to building a team that reflects the world we serve.

Our hiring process is designed to be accessible, fair, and focused on the work that matters most for this role. Reasonable accommodations are available throughout the hiring process and employment—please let us know if you need one.

Voluntary Self‑Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self‑identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Arbor Energy’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A \"disabled veteran\" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service‑connected disability.

A \"recently separated veteran\" means any veteran during the three‑year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An \"active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran\" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An \"Armed forces service medal veteran\" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.