Senior Manager Development Test

Anduril Industries; Costa Mesa (CA); On-site; USD 166,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity grants

Comprehensive benefits package

Job summary

Anduril Industries, a defense technology innovator in Costa Mesa, CA, is seeking a senior leader to head the Enterprise Test Capabilities organization. You will oversee environmental, structural, wind tunnel, and related test infrastructure, scaling capabilities as the product portfolio grows and ensuring rapid design iteration with rigorous validation.

The role requires deep hands‑on test expertise, multi‑million‑dollar budgets, and a proven ability to lead and develop technical teams in a

Qualifications

• 10+ years in test engineering or hardware development within defense or high‑reliability industries.
• 5+ years of direct leadership and people management.
• Hands‑on experience in environmental, structural loads, wind tunnel, or similar tests.
• Experience managing capital equipment portfolios and multi‑million‑dollar test budgets.
• Ability to develop and execute test strategies for complex hardware systems.
• Energy to work in a hyper‑growth startup disrupting the defense industry.
• Active TS clearance; SCI eligibility preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Enterprise Test Capabilities organization with an emphasis on environmental, structural, wind tunnel, and test infrastructure.
• Own and scale niche test capabilities as the portfolio grows.
• Manage capital equipment, lab infrastructure, calibration, and asset road mapping.
• Drive expansion of internal test capabilities to accelerate design iteration and product readiness.
• Translate validation needs into executable test strategies and resource plans.
• Lead test architecture, fixture strategy, and data review for complex hardware programs.
• Balance priorities across a matrixed, fast‑paced environment, aligning talent and resources with business impact.
• Build scalable test intake, planning, execution, data delivery, and calibration control processes.
• Collaborate with vendors and labs to expand internal capability and maintain independence where needed.
• Develop technical leaders and manage performance in a scaling test organization.
• Serve as senior escalation point for high‑consequence test issues across loads, dynamics, testing, and systems engineering.

Skills

Test engineering leadership

People management

Test strategy development

Budget management

Strong communication

Problem solving

Top Secret clearance

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering

Tools

Instrumentation architecture

Data acquisition systems

MATLAB

LabVIEW

Nastran/Patran

HyperWorks

Job description

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the Enterprise Test Capabilities organization—a centralized engineering team of development test engineers, technicians, and technical leads—providing environmental, structural, wind tunnel, and other specialized test execution, instrumentation, data acquisition, and physical test infrastructure across Anduril’s product portfolio.
• Own and scale niche test capabilities (environmental qualification, structural loads and dynamics, wind tunnel characterization, and emerging disciplines) ensuring the organization can execute complex campaigns with speed and rigor as Anduril’s portfolio grows.
• Manage capital equipment, lab infrastructure, calibration processes, and shared test assets, including planning, prioritization, procurement, utilization, maintenance, and long‑range capability road mapping—to keep pace with program demand.
• Drive the expansion of internal test capabilities, reducing dependency on external facilities and enabling faster design iteration, aerodynamic characterization, and product readiness.
• Partner with program and product leaders to translate system‑level validation needs into executable test strategies, resource plans, instrumentation architectures, and risk‑based test campaigns.
• Lead test architecture and readiness planning for complex hardware programs, including fixture strategy, data requirements, sensor selection, DAQ configuration, calibrated instrumentation, and post‑test data review.
• Balance competing program priorities across a matrixed, high‑growth environment by allocating scarce engineering talent, lab space, instrumentation, calibrated assets, and capital equipment against the highest business‑impact work.
• Build scalable processes for test intake, prioritization, planning, execution, data delivery, calibration control, and lessons learned—replacing ad hoc “hero mode” execution with repeatable, high‑velocity workflows.
• Establish operating mechanisms for resource tracking, lab capacity, equipment utilization, calibration status, schedule risk, and program support visibility to improve decision‑making across leadership teams.
• Partner with vendors, third‑party labs, facilities teams, and equipment suppliers to expand internal capability, execute capital projects and RFPs, and maintain execution independence where it matters.
• Develop technical leaders, engineers, and technicians through career ladders, leveling expectations, mentorship, hiring, organizational design, and performance management in a fast‑scaling test organization.
• Serve as a senior technical escalation point for high‑consequence development test issues, bringing cross‑disciplinary experience in loads, dynamics, environmental testing, instrumentation, and systems engineering to diagnose failures and drive practical solutions.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive experience in test engineering, test operations, or related hardware development disciplines within defense, aerospace, or high‑reliability industries.
• 5+ years of direct leadership and people‑management experience, including building teams, managing technical leads, and scaling organizations.
• Deep hands‑on experience in one or more of the following: environmental testing (thermal, vibration, shock), structural loads and dynamics testing, wind tunnel testing, or other specialized physical test disciplines.
• Demonstrated ability to manage capital equipment portfolios, lab infrastructure, calibration programs, and multi‑million‑dollar test budgets.
• Experience developing and executing test strategies for complex hardware systems from development through qualification.
• Energy and passion to work at a hyper‑growth startup that is aggressively disrupting the defense industry and a firm belief in Anduril’s mission.
• Deep empathy towards your internal customers—the product divisions and design engineers who rely on your test infrastructure—strongly held opinions about how to deliver high‑velocity testing services, and a strong distaste for “old aerospace” paper‑heavy, slow, and siloed testing methodologies.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to translate complex physical validation requirements into executable, high‑fidelity test solutions.
• Superb communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to manage competing divisional priorities and present technical risk, test readiness, and capability status to executive leadership and military customers.
• Strong people management skills with the ability to lead, coach, and scale engineers and technical leaders in a matrixed, fast‑paced enterprise support environment.
• Active Top Secret (TS) security clearance. SCI eligibility preferred.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in aerospace engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related engineering discipline.
• Experience standing up or significantly scaling shared services or centralized test organization.
• Background in instrumentation architecture, data acquisition systems, and sensor technologies.
• Familiarity with wind tunnel design, operation, and data analysis workflows.
• Experience with defense acquisition milestones, customer test demonstrations, and qualification review processes (MIL‑STD‑810, MIL‑HDBK‑516, DO‑160, or equivalent).
• Proficiency with test data analysis tools (Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW) and engineering applications (Nastran/Patran, HyperWorks)

US Salary Range

$166,000—$220,000 USD

Benefits

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.

Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full‑time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top‑tier benefits for full‑time employees, including:

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next.

For more information, Explore Our Benefits.

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