{"id":1116723,"url":"https://alion.io/job/cx2-head-of-manufacturing","title":"Head of Manufacturing","company":{"id":173498,"name":"CX2","domain":"cx2.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/cx2","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":null},"role":"Operations","role_family":"Operations","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["El Segundo, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":225000,"max":275000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":275000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-27T21:32:45Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-27","last_verified_at":"2026-09-25T22:13:12Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":29,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":29},"description":"We are seeking a Head of Manufacturing to lead and scale our manufacturing organization.\nThis is a highly hands-on leadership role for someone who understands how to manufacture complex hardware in a fast-paced environment. You will own the strategy, processes, people, facilities, and systems required to deliver high-quality products reliably and at increasing volumes.\nThe ideal candidate has built or scaled manufacturing operations within the defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, robotics, or other complex hardware industries and is equally comfortable on the production floor, working through technical issues with engineering, and developing the long-term manufacturing strategy.\nLeadership Profile\nWe’re looking for a leader who can build the manufacturing organization, not simply inherit one. You should be comfortable setting the long-term strategy while still spending significant time on the production floor solving today’s problems.\nYou know how to bring structure and discipline to manufacturing without creating unnecessary bureaucracy. You understand that in a rapidly growing defense company, manufacturing is not simply a downstream function-it is a critical partner to engineering and an essential part of getting capable systems into customers’ hands quickly and reliably.\nKey Responsibilities\nOwn the overall manufacturing strategy, production operations, and execution across the organization.\nBuild and scale manufacturing capabilities to support the transition from prototype and low-rate initial production (LRIP) to higher-volume production.\nEstablish production processes, workflows, tooling, work instructions, and manufacturing standards that improve quality, throughput, and repeatability.\nLead manufacturing teams across areas such as production, manufacturing engineering, technicians, integration, and test.\nPartner closely with Mechanical, Electrical, RF, Systems, Test, and other engineering teams to ensure products are designed for manufacturability, assembly, and test.\nDrive Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) into the product development lifecycle.\nOwn production planning and capacity planning to ensure manufacturing can meet aggressive customer and program schedules.\nDevelop manufacturing KPIs around yield, throughput, cycle time, quality, cost, schedule performance, and capacity.\nIdentify production bottlenecks and implement processes, automation, tooling, or equipment to improve manufacturing efficiency.\nEstablish strong configuration control, documentation, traceability, and production discipline appropriate for defense and aerospace products.\nStand up and enable Quality to establish inspection, acceptance, non-conformance, corrective-action, and continuous-improvement processes.\nWork closely with Supply Chain to identify critical suppliers, mitigate material constraints, and ensure production readiness.\nDevelop make-versus-buy strategies for critical components, assemblies, and manufacturing capabilities.\nOwn manufacturing facility planning, including production layout, equipment, tooling, lab space, ESD-controlled environments, and future capacity requirements.\nSupport customer deliveries, production readiness reviews, audits, and other manufacturing-related customer or government requirements.\nRecruit, develop, and lead a high-performing manufacturing organization while maintaining a culture of accountability, urgency, quality, and continuous improvement.\nQualifications\n5+ years of experience in manufacturing, operations, manufacturing engineering, or production leadership, preferably within defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, robotics, or complex electromechanical hardware.\nDemonstrated experience building or scaling a manufacturing operation, ideally from prototype or low-rate production into repeatable production.\nStrong understanding of manufacturing complex electromechanical systems, including mechanical assemblies, electronics, wiring/harnessing, integration, and system-level test.\nExperience working closely with engineering organizations to transition products from R&D/NPI into production.\nStrong understanding of production planning, manufacturing engineering, quality systems, supply chain, and inventory management.\nExperience developing production processes, work instructions, tooling, fixtures, test equipment, and manufacturing documentation.\nFamiliarity with aerospace and defense quality and compliance environments, such as AS9100, ISO 9001, configuration management, and product traceability.\nExperience managing manufacturing schedules and delivering hardware against aggressive program milestones.\nStrong analytical skills and experience using manufacturing data and KPIs to drive operational improvements.\nDemonstrated ability to recruit, develop, and manage manufacturing engineers, production personnel, and technicians.\nAbility to operate effectively in an environment where priorities move quickly and leaders are expected to be hands-on problem solvers rather than purely organizational managers.\nBachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent relevant experience.\nBonus Points\nExperience manufacturing UAS, RF/EW systems, avionics, communications systems, sensors, or other mission-critical defense hardware.\nExperience scaling production for a defense technology startup or other rapidly growing hardware company.\nExperience with NPI, LRIP, production qualification, and production readiness reviews.\nKnowledge of ITAR/EAR requirements and manufacturing within controlled defense environments.\nExperience implementing or improving ERP/MRP/MES systems.\nExperience with Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, root-cause analysis, and continuous-improvement methodologies.\nExperience establishing new production facilities or significantly expanding manufacturing capacity.\nFamiliarity with government programs, defense customers, and manufacturing requirements associated with DoD contracts.\nITAR Regulations\nTo conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a US Citizen, Green Card holder, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6238,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Military","Military Communication"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-22T16:20:08Z"}],"liveness":{"score":33,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.6,"p_room":0.55,"age_days":28,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:2","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-09-25T05:45:01Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":275000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/cx2-head-of-manufacturing","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/cx2-head-of-manufacturing.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-09-26T02:51:51Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":3013,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":1987,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-09-27T00:00:00Z"}}}