Production Supervisor

Photon Kinetics, Inc; Beaverton (OR); On-site; USD 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

Photon Kinetics, Inc. is seeking a Production Supervisor to oversee a floor area of 8–15 people in Beaverton, OR. You will ensure daily execution, manage scheduling, and maintain training and documentation to support first-pass yield and labor reporting.

This hands-on role requires on-site presence and direct people management with a focus on quality and safety. The successful candidate has prior supervisory experience in electronics/manufacturing, is fluent with routings and work instructions,

Qualifications

• Three or more years in electronics, instrument, or precision electro-mechanical manufacturing.
• At least one year directing the work of others — formally as a supervisor, or substantively as a lead.
• Fluent with routings, bills of material, assembly drawings, and work instructions; able to tell when the document and the reality have part? company.

Responsibilities

• Assign work each day and sequence it within the week; confirm before the shift that material, documentation, and test stations are actually available.
• Close the work orders scheduled for the day.
• Escalate shortages and station problems the day they appear — not at the end of the week.
• Report schedule attainment and the reason for any miss.
• Stop work when quality or safety requires it; this authority is not shared and does not need prior approval.

Skills

Supervisory experience

ERP system

Documentation accuracy

Tools

ERP system

Job description

Photon Kinetics is the world’s trusted standard in optical fiber testing and measurement solutions. For more than 40 years, our instruments have helped fiber and cable manufacturers deliver the performance that enables high-speed communication networks around the globe. 95% of the world’s optical fiber has been tested using our equipment. As the world moves deeper into AI-driven computing and hyperscale data centers, the demand for precise measurement and reliable optical infrastructure continues to grow. Photon Kinetics is applying its expertise in measurement science, automation, and precision systems to help build the connectivity backbone that powers the next generation of data and AI technologies.

ROLE OVERVIEW

Photon Kinetics builds fiber-optic test and measurement instruments to order — low volume, high mix, heavily dependent on the judgment of experienced assemblers and test technicians. The Production Supervisor is the dedicated floor presence for one area of 8–15 people: who is on what today, whether the station and material are ready, and whether the person doing the work is trained and signed off for it. This is the role that answers one question — did today happen, and are my people capable of tomorrow? The role is accountable for daily execution and for the people doing it. It executes a schedule the Production Manager built, owns first-pass yield and labor reporting integrity for the area, and holds the training matrix. The hardest technical problem on the floor stays with the leads and Engineering; this role's job is to make sure the right person is doing the right work with the right documentation in front of them.

WHAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE IN YEAR ONE

• Training Matrix Built and Gaps Closed: Within 90 days, produce a current, accurate training matrix for the area with every gap named. By end of year, drive cross-training coverage to 100% of critical operations with at least two people signed off.
• Daily Work Order Closure Reported Consistently: Establish reliable daily reporting of work order closure — whatever the number says — and hold hours to standard within ±10% of the area baseline. Measure first, set targets after a quarter.
• First Improvement Project Completed with Numbers: Identify at least one improvement in cycle time, layout, rework loops, or 5S within the first 90 days, attach a cost or time figure to it, and drive it to completion with measurable results by end of year.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Daily Execution & Scheduling

• Assign work each day and sequence it within the week; confirm before the shift that material, documentation, and test stations are actually available.
• Close the work orders scheduled for the day.
• Escalate shortages and station problems the day they appear — not at the end of the week.
• Report schedule attainment and the reason for any miss.
• Stop work when quality or safety requires it; this authority is not shared and does not need prior approval.

People Management

• Approve time and attendance; manage overtime within the approved budget.
• Own the training matrix for the area: know who is signed off on what, close gaps deliberately, and do not assign work to someone not signed off for it.
• Onboard new hires and contract workers through to independent work.
• Give feedback continuously; write annual review input for each direct report and recommend merit increases and level changes.
• Handle first-line corrective action with HR involved from the start.
• Interview for the area and recommend selection.

Contract Labor Management

• Direct the day-to-day work of agency workers in the area and give the agency assignment feedback on a regular cycle.
• Flag conversion candidates early.
• Route performance management and discipline for agency workers through HR rather than handling directly.

Quality & Compliance

• Own first-pass yield for the area and the response to any FQA or IQA rejection: containment first, then cause.
• Participate in root-cause investigation and corrective action; supply the floor facts honestly, including when the cause is how the work was actually done.
• Ensure work is performed to released routings and work instructions; raise an engineering change when the floor has quietly diverged from the document.
• Own labor reporting integrity — close work orders with real hours.
• Support customer and registrar audits: walk an auditor through the area and produce training records on request.

Process Improvement & Metrics

• Keep routings, work instructions, and standard times accurate for the area; feed corrections to the Production Manager.
• Identify and run improvement work on cycle time, layout, rework loops, and 5S.
• Track labor hours against standard, overtime, and scrap and rework cost.

Safety

• Enforce ESD control, optical and laser safety around live fiber and bare-fiber handling, chemical handling, and ergonomics.
• Report incidents and near misses the same day; participate in the investigation.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Three or more years in electronics, instrument, or precision electro-mechanical manufacturing.
• At least one year directing the work of others — formally as a supervisor, or substantively as a lead.
• Fluent with routings, bills of material, assembly drawings, and work instructions; able to tell when the document and the reality have part? company.
• Comfortable transacting in an ERP system daily.
• Written English sufficient to author a corrective-action record that will be read by a customer auditor.
• Able to work on site in Beaverton and to be present at the start of the shift.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Fiber optics, photonics, or optical test experience.
• Worked inside an ISO 9001 quality system, including through a registrar or customer audit.
• Formal lean or continuous-improvement training, and at least one improvement they can describe end to end with numbers.
• Experience managing a mixed team of direct employees and agency workers.

WHY THIS ROLE IS DIFFERENT

• This is a floor-presence role with real people accountability — not a lead who does the hardest work personally, and not a manager who owns the schedule. The supervisor's job is to make the area run without being the area's best technician.
• The team is long-tenured and technically deep. Holding a standard with people who have worked together for fifteen years — and keeping them — is the actual difficulty of the job.
• Decision rights are explicit: the supervisor decides daily assignments, overtime within budget, stopping a build, and first-line corrective action. Everything else is a recommendation or an escalation with a named destination and a same-day expectation.
• Metrics are owned, not shared. Daily work order closure, cross-training coverage, hours to standard, first-pass yield, overtime rate, unplanned absence, and voluntary turnover all sit with this role — no other role is measured on them.
• The classification is written to the executive exemption and is meant to be lived that way. If the supervisor ends up on the bench most of the week, the exemption is exposed — which is a reason to watch the workload, not just a compliance footnote.

WHY JOIN PHOTON KINETICS

You’ll work on technologies that enable the next wave of AI and data center innovation. At Photon Kinetics, you’ll join a highly skilled, collaborative team where your contributions directly impact the products and relationships that connect the world. You’ll have visibility and influence in a company recognized globally for engineering excellence, precision, and trusted performance. We value different perspectives and problem-solving approaches. The best solutions come from teams that think different.