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Director of Engineering, Forward Deployed Engineering

Hadrian Automation· Engineering, Product, Design
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Los Angeles, CAFull-timePosted 1w ago

About the role

Director leading the Forward Deployed team across one or more programs, responsible for technical outcomes, roadmap, and program delivery in collaboration with government and defense partners.

Responsibilities

  • Own the technical roadmap and delivery. Take the program from the first ambiguous conversation to running in production; decide what Opus covers, what gets built, and what we say no to; maintain high execution bar for rate, quality, schedule, and cost.
  • Bring program learnings to platform teams. Share program learnings at Hadrian to improve the product for all customers and decide which Forward Deployed products should become part of Opus.
  • Own the executive relationship on the technical side. Be the primary technical contact for customer program leadership, government stakeholders, and prime partners. Run technical reviews, negotiate scope and schedule, and manage trade-offs with commercial stakes.
  • Build and lead the team. Hire and grow the engineers, product managers, and designers on your program; set the working standard and guide their scoping efforts.
  • Stay hands-on. Initially contribute technically (v0), later review what the team ships to ensure it meets Hadrian’s quality bar.

Qualifications

  • Highly commercial technical leaders with excellent product judgment.
  • Demonstrated history leading engineering and product teams and scaling a product from zero to one.
  • Strong in external and internal executive relationships; experience owning senior customer relationships and delivering commitments.
  • Product sense: ability to discern what’s worth building and what good looks like for the user; ship end-to-end.
  • Hands-on technically; able to support architecture and review as well as delivering own ideas from design to delivery.
  • AI-native mindset; experience using AI to accelerate discovery to execution and rebuilding team workflows around AI.
  • Experience hiring builders into ambiguous roles and getting them productive quickly.
  • Driven by mission and tempo; interest in rebuilding the industrial base and delivering at customer pace.

Skills

Required:Technical leadershipProduct managementCustomer and executive relationship managementHands-on engineeringAI/native tooling

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans for employees
  • 401k
  • Relocation support may be provided for certain situations, based on business need.
  • Flexible vacation policy
  • Equity
Last updated Oct 21, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Hadrian Automation

Manufacturing the Future

Hadrian is building the planet's most efficient factories to accelerate a free, abundant, spacefaring future.

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