Managing, Sustaining Engineering
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Nov 6, 2026. First seen by Alion on Oct 22, 2026. ICON scores A on the Alion truth index.
ICON builds robotic systems that construct multi-story buildings. ICON launched Titan commercially in March 2026, has raised more than $550M, and holds more than $360M in government contracts across the Army, Air Force, DARPA, and NASA. As the fleet of field-deployed printers and the manufacturing operation behind them grow, so does the volume of field issues, work instructions, and reliability data that Sustaining Engineering is responsible for.
The Manager, Sustaining Engineering leads the engineering team that maintains and improves ICON's field-deployed systems and manufacturing processes. You own the resolution of field issues, the work instructions that keep crews and manufacturing running, and the systems that track equipment performance. New product development stays with the design engineering teams; Sustaining owns everything after release.
You will work daily with program management, manufacturing, field operations, and design engineering, and you are accountable for your team's priorities, schedules, procedures, and budget execution. This role is based at ICON's Austin, TX office and reports to the VP of Product and Engineering.
Responsibilities
Team Leadership
- Manage a team of ~6 sustaining engineers, setting priorities, assigning work, and reviewing output against objectives set with the VP of Vulcan Engineering.
- Coach engineers through moderately complex field issues and provide technical direction on root cause analysis, corrective actions, and design changes.
- Plan headcount, hiring, and skill development for the team and determine the resources needed to meet schedules and goals.
Field Issue Resolution and Reliability
- Own the intake, triage, and closure of field issues on deployed systems, including escalation paths to design engineering when a change to the released product is required.
- Build and maintain the systems used to track and analyze field equipment performance, and use that data to prioritize reliability improvements.
- Lead test planning and validation for product enhancements and sustaining changes before release to the field and manufacturing.
Work Instructions and Process
- Partner with program management and manufacturing to create and revise work instructions for new and existing products, ensuring they are accurate, current, and usable by the people performing the work.
- Establish and document the procedures the Sustaining team follows for change control, issue tracking, and release of updates, and recommend changes to engineering policies where current practice falls short.
- Identify and implement automation opportunities in field and internal engineering workflows, from tooling and data capture to repetitive manual processes.
Planning and Budget
- Execute the Sustaining Engineering budget, tracking spend against plan and flagging variances to the VP.
- Contribute to Vulcan Engineering planning cycles with input on team capacity, reliability priorities, and resource needs.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field, or equivalent experience.
- 5+ years of engineering experience with hardware systems in production or field use, including prior supervisory or people management experience.
- Experience leading engineers through root cause analysis and corrective action on fielded or manufactured products.
- Demonstrated ability to define and run team procedures, work plans, and schedules within an established engineering organization.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with attention to detail.
- Clear verbal and written communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to operate in a fast-paced environment with evolving priorities.
Preferred Skills and Experience
- Experience with robotics, automation, or other complex electromechanical systems.
- Start-up or small-company experience where the process had to be built rather than inherited.
- Familiarity with Jira or similar issue-tracking tools and with administering cloud-based collaboration tools.
- Knowledge of basic networking principles.
ICON is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an innovative, inclusive, diverse and discrimination-free work environment. Employment with ICON is based on merit, competence, and qualifications. It is our policy to administer all personnel actions, including recruiting, hiring, training, and promoting employees, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or ancestry, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other legally protected classification in accordance with applicable federal and state laws. Consistent with the obligations of these laws, ICON will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.
Furthermore, as a federal government contractor, the Company maintains an affirmative action program which furthers its commitment and complies with recordkeeping and reporting requirements under certain federal civil rights laws and regulations, including Executive Order 11246, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (as amended) and the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (as amended).
Headhunters and recruitment agencies may not submit candidates through this application. ICON does not accept unsolicited headhunter and agency submissions for candidates and will not pay fees to any third-party agency without a prior agreement with ICON.
As part of our compliance with these obligations, the Company invites you to voluntarily self-identify as set forth below. Provision of such information is entirely voluntary and a decision to provide or not provide such information will not have any effect on your employment or subject you to any adverse treatment. Any and all information provided will be considered confidential, will be kept separate from your application and/or personnel file, and will only be used in accordance with applicable laws, orders and regulations, including those that require the information to be summarized and reported to the federal government for civil rights enforcement purposes.