Senior Project Manager, MDP

Anduril; Costa Mesa (CA); On-site; USD 146,000 - 194,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity grants

Health benefits

Job summary

Anduril Industries is seeking a Senior Manufacturing Development Project Manager to extend the Manufacturing Development Process across multiple product lines, balancing process rigor with speed. You’ll partner with Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, and Program Management to reduce manufacturing risk and improve readiness.

You will lead rollout, create tailored templates, and communicate progress to executives, building data-driven dashboards and compelling business cases to guide production

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in project management, program management, organizational change, manufacturing engineering, or engineering transformation.
• 8+ years of experience overall in relevant domains.
• Direct hardware development experience with strong business acumen.
• Business process creation, development, rollout, and adoption experience.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without authority and create lasting behavioral change.
• Understanding of the product lifecycle (design/development/production), as well as the purpose of each phase and its associated importance for manufacturing readiness.
• Bias toward action with ability to filter noise from signal in order to go after the right problems and solutions.
• Proven ability to execute operationally while also being able to step back and think strategically.
• Proven self-starter, accepting direction on the “what” while driving extreme ownership of the “how.”
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance

Responsibilities

• Introduce and socialize the MDP framework across stakeholders and programs.
• Lead rollout and implementation for product lines, align milestones, track progress.
• Communicate importance of MDP to technical and non-technical stakeholders; tailor strategies.
• Create dashboards to visualize manufacturing risks and elevate them to senior leaders.
• Facilitate manufacturing-driven product maturity checkpoints and prep messaging for stakeholders.
• Create resources to extend MDP; balance standardization with flexibility to maintain speed.
• Build relationships and influence change across cross-functional teams.

Skills

Project management

Program management

Manufacturing engineering

Change management

Product lifecycle understanding

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.

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Manufacturing Development Process (MDP) team defines the ‘What’, ‘When’, ‘Why’ and ‘How’ for Manufacturing, from new product development (NPD) and new product introduction (NPI) to manufacturing operations. MDP is a comprehensive framework that enables Manufacturing Engineering teams to pull production readiness to the left and produce effectively at scale - highlighting key activities, deliverables, and cross-functional touchpoints to identify and elevate manufacturing risks early enough to inform engineering decisions.

ABOUT THE JOB

Anduril’s Manufacturing Development Process team is seeking a Senior Manufacturing Development Project Manager to expand MDP across multiple product lines varying in process, cost, and schedule complexity. This role includes introducing, tailoring, and managing the rollout of MDP to multiple Divisions and Business Lines, tracking implementation progress, product health, and manufacturing risks, and developing and deploying tailored templates and resources. As a liaison between the Manufacturing Engineering team and all of its cross-functional partners (Program Management, Design Engineering, Quality, Test, etc.), this role develops business cases for technical solutions to align all teams on the approach to production.

If you are looking for a unique opportunity that is 70% project management and 30% manufacturing expertise, then this role is for you. You will bridge the gap between technical project management and production program management to improve manufacturing readiness and reduce manufacturing risk, measuring success by adoption of MDP as the playbook for production success - not by product delivery or cost avoidance. The successful candidate will have a mix of both business and technical acumen, with a strong focus on the product lifecycle and concurrent engineering principles.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Introduce the MDP framework to a diverse set of stakeholders and programs. Socialize the business process and accompanying resources with cross-functional teams, including Manufacturing Engineering, Manufacturing Operations, Design Engineering, Supply Chain, Program Management, Configuration Management, Quality, and more.
• Lead Manufacturing Engineering teams through MDP rollout and implementation for their specific product line. Align manufacturing milestones with integrated program schedules, establish accountability for MDP execution, track progress, facilitate action item closure, personalize resources, and prioritize team activities and deliverables.
• Communicate the importance of MDP and how it contributes to production success to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, from individual contributors to executives. Develop and deploy tailored communication strategies to match stakeholder interests when articulating manufacturing readiness to cross-functional audiences.
• Create and maintain data visualization dashboards that synthesize engineering and production information to elucidate and illustrate manufacturing risks to working teams, then highlight and elevate those risks to the VP of Production, Head of Production, Chief Engineer, Head of Program Management, and other senior leaders.
• Facilitate manufacturing-driven product maturity checkpoints alongside Manufacturing Engineering teams. Shape presentation content and guide messaging to cross-functional stakeholders. Build strategic business cases that highlight and communicate manufacturing risk to executive audiences, critically thinking through options and varying impacts to production to enable informed decision-making.
• Create tactical resources to execute MDP beyond the business process and help define what good looks like. Balance standardization with flexibility to create structure without killing speed, fostering meaningful adoption.
• Build relationships and influence change. Collaborate closely with engineers, program managers, product developers, and technicians to deeply understand their pain points, needs, and workflows. Advocate for manufacturing while recognizing the broader environment in which all of Anduril is operating.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 3+ years of experience in project management, program management, organizational change, manufacturing engineering, or engineering transformation.
• 8+ years of experience overall in relevant domains.
• Direct hardware development experience with strong business acumen.
• Business process creation, development, rollout, and adoption experience.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without authority and create lasting behavioral change.
• Understanding of the product lifecycle (design/development/production), as well as the purpose of each phase and its associated importance for manufacturing readiness.
• Bias toward action with ability to filter noise from signal in order to go after the right problems and solutions.
• Proven ability to execute operationally while also being able to step back and think strategically.
• Proven self-starter, accepting direction on the “what” while driving extreme ownership of the “how.”
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience leading organizational change.
• Experience successfully taking new products and/or production systems from development to full-scale production.
• Deep knowledge of concurrent engineering, as well as both engineering and manufacturing phases of the product lifecycle.

US Salary Range

$146,000 - $194,000 USD

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 .

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