Wardstone
Head of Manufacturing
El Segundo, United States · On-site · Director · Full-time · Posted Oct 18, 2026
- Experience
- 7+ years of manufacturing experience, including at least 5 years in leadership.
- Education
- B.S. in Mechanical, Manufacturing, Industrial, or Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
- Visa sponsorship
- Must be a U.S. person as defined by ITAR (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual) and eligible to obtain a U.S. security clearance.
About the job
Build Wardstone’s manufacturing capability, scaling interceptor hardware from prototypes to reliable, affordable production at volume.
What you'll do
- Lead the manufacturing team and set in-house versus outsourced manufacturing strategy and priorities.
- Plan the facility, equipment, tooling, production processes, and transition to low-rate and full-rate production.
- Own quality and safety systems, production rate and unit cost, and collaborate with engineering on design-for-manufacturing and design-for-test.
What they ask for
- B.S. in Mechanical, Manufacturing, Industrial, or Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
- 7+ years of manufacturing experience in aerospace, defense, or complex hardware, including at least 5 years in leadership.
- Experience scaling a hardware product from prototype to production and building and leading manufacturing teams.
- Strong knowledge of quality systems and production processes; experience planning facilities, equipment, and tooling.
Nice to have
- Experience with missiles, munitions, rockets, flight vehicles, energetics manufacturing, or explosives safety programs.
- Experience with LRIP, lean manufacturing, automation, high-volume production, ERP or manufacturing execution systems, or early-stage startups.
Tools
AS9100, DoD 4145.26, ERP
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative