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Sr. Director, Forward Deployed Engineering

Hadrian Automation· Engineering, Product, Design
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San Francisco Bay Area, CA$300k - $415kFull-timePosted 5d ago

About the role

Senior leadership role responsible for directing Forward Deployed teams across programs, owning technical roadmaps, and driving end-to-end delivery of multi-billion-dollar programs in collaboration with government stakeholders, customers, and Hadrian leadership.

Responsibilities

  • Own the technical roadmap and delivery end‑to‑end. Drive programs from ambiguous first conversations to production deployment—defining scope, determining what gets built, and making clear, decisive calls on what we ship.
  • Share program learnings across the business to improve the product and determine which Forward Deployed products are shipped to both current and future programs and customers.
  • Executive ownership: serve as primary technical owner for customer program leadership, government stakeholders, and prime partners. Lead technical reviews, oversee discussions regarding scope and scheduling, and drive technical decisions across programs.
  • Build and lead the team. Hire and grow engineers, product managers, and designers across programs. You set the standard for how they work.
  • Remain hands-on as programs evolve—build the early foundation, then drive quality, set the bar for excellence, and ensure the team delivers to that standard.

Qualifications

  • Highly commercial technical leaders with excellent product judgment.
  • Demonstrated history leading engineering and product teams and scaling a product from 0-1.
  • Executive-level stakeholder management. Owned executive level customer relationships and commitments.
  • Product sense and ability to ship end-to-end.
  • Hands-on technical leadership, comfortable with architecture and delivery from design to deployment.
  • AI-native mindset and ability to leverage AI to accelerate discovery to execution.
  • Track record of building highly productive teams in ambiguous environments.
  • Driven by mission and able to maintain tempo to meet customer needs.

Skills

Required:Technical leadershipExecutive stakeholder managementProduct sense / product judgmentArchitecture & technical reviews
Nice to have:AI-enabled leadership

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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