Senior Contracts Manager — Aerospace & Defense

Hadrian Automation; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

401k

Relocation support

Flexible vacation policy

Equity

Job summary

Hadrian is seeking a Contracts Manager to own the full lifecycle of customer and supplier agreements, from intake to closeout, including pre-award reviews, negotiations, renewals, and performance tracking. You will administer subcontracts and coordinate with Supply Chain, ensuring compliance with FAR/DFARS clauses and export controls. The role emphasizes reducing contract cycle time and building scalable workflows.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, contracts management, supply chain management, finance, law, or a related field.
• 5+ years in contract management, contract administration, or procurement contracting in aerospace, defense, or advanced manufacturing, including full lifecycle responsibility for customer and supplier agreements personally negotiated and administered.
• Experience negotiating from the supplier side of the table with prime contractors or major OEMs, including long-term supply agreements, customer terms and purchase orders, and the pricing, delivery, and liability commitments behind them
• Substantial experience administering purchase orders, supplier terms, and subcontracts in a manufacturing, industrial, or hardware environment, including capital equipment or major asset purchases and the acceptance, installation, and milestone payment structures behind them.
• Working command of the FAR and DFARS clauses primes flow down to their suppliers. The candidate understands how prime-tier subcontracts and purchase orders are formed, administered, and modified, and how the prime’s contract type shapes the terms it flows down.
• Demonstrated record of negotiating complex agreements to closure across price, terms, schedule, and risk allocation.
• Hands‑on ownership of a contract lifecycle management system as an administrator, including workflow configuration, templates, permissions, and reporting, and advanced proficiency in Microsoft Word and Excel.
• The candidate interprets legal language, assesses risk, and translates contractual requirements into guidance that engineering, program, and operations teams can act upon.

Responsibilities

• Own assigned customer and supplier agreements from intake through closeout: pre-award review, negotiation, award, acceptance, performance, modification, renewal, and closeout. Administer Hadrian’s subcontracts under prime contractor terms. Track deliverables, milestones, acceptance, and notice dates against each contract, and escalate noncompliance before it becomes a dispute.
• Draft, revise, and interpret long-term supply agreements, master agreements, subcontracts, purchase orders, quote terms, non-disclosure agreements, statements of work, amendments, and change orders. Produce clear, defensible language on Hadrian’s paper and precise redlines on the counterparty’s.
• Digest the FAR, DFARS, and customer-specific clauses the primes flow down to Hadrian through customer agreements and purchase orders. Determine which obligations Hadrian must carry, which must flow to its suppliers, and which do not apply. Apply them to the correct vendor agreements order by order and maintain the record of which clauses attached where.
• Draft and administer Hadrian’s terms for subcontracts, suppliers, and capital equipment, including acceptance, warranty, title and risk of loss, and milestone payment structures. Verify that the correct Hadrian terms and category addenda attach to every order, screen order-face fields for the completeness downstream controls depend on, and confirm order terms do not conflict with the governing master agreement
• Review customer terms, purchase orders, and long-term agreements from the primes against Hadrian’s established positions, and identify the pricing, liability, intellectual property, and data rights terms that require escalation. Adjudicate markups returned against Hadrian’s purchase order and quote terms under the playbook, and determine acceptance within delegated authority. Prepare the response setting out Hadrian’s position in terms the counterparty can act on.
• Own the portfolio end to end across customers, suppliers, and prospective partners. Apply the review checklist to every inbound form, issue Hadrian’s standard redline, and distribute Hadrian’s form on request. Determine whether a mutual or unilateral instrument is appropriate and which party is protected. Approve deviations within the playbook, negotiate to closure, and track expirations.
• Maintain the contract record in accordance with company and regulatory requirements. Define and enforce the contract file standard and naming conventions, own the central repository, and administer records retention. Drive discovery and reconciliation of legacy agreements to completion.
• Own the contract lifecycle platform and serve as first-line support for its users. Build and maintain workflows, approval routing, templates, and form fields, and map approval chains to the delegation of authority. Direct the implementation partner through user acceptance testing and go-live. Own the enhancement backlog, integrations, permissions, and access reviews, and enforce the export control handling gate before any upload.

Skills

Contract management

Aerospace experience

Negotiation skills

Procurement contracts

FAR/DFARS knowledge

Contract lifecycle

MS Word & Excel

Attention to detail

Education

Bachelor’s degree in business, contracts, or related field

MS/MBA/JD preferred

Tools

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Excel

Job description

Hadrian is seeking a Contracts Manager to own the full lifecycle of customer and supplier agreements, from intake to closeout, including pre-award reviews, negotiations, renewals, and performance tracking. You will administer subcontracts and coordinate with Supply Chain, ensuring compliance with FAR/DFARS clauses and export controls. The role emphasizes reducing contract cycle time and building scalable workflows.