Head of Qualification

Hadrian is building autonomous factories that help aerospace and defense companies manufacture rockets, satellites, jets, and ships up to 10x faster and up to 2x cheaper. By combining advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing, we are reinventing how America produces its most critical parts.

We’re accelerating our mission with the launch of Factory 3 in Mesa, Arizona, a 290,000-square-foot facility creating 350 new jobs. We are expanding rapidly to support thousands of future hires, launching Hadrian Maritime to expand into naval production, and introducing a Factory-as-a-Service model that delivers complete systems instead of individual parts.

Hadrian is backed by leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz, our fast-growing team is united around reindustrializing American manufacturing for the 21st century and beyond.

Hadrian is seeking a Head of Qualification to own and scale how parts get qualified for production across our defense programs. This is the leader who turns incomplete, legacy technical data into production-ready manufacturing data and source-approved parts, at speed and at scale.

Qualification is its own discipline at Hadrian: the end-to-end pipeline that takes a part from intake through technical data evaluation, gap resolution, qualification data package assembly, first article verification, and part qualification to source approval. The Director of Qualification owns that pipeline — the process, the tooling that runs it, the team of Product Qualification Managers (PQMs) and engineers who do the substantive technical work, and the customer-facing relationships that move parts through approval.

This person will define what qualification means at Hadrian, hold a clear line on what is and isn't in scope, and build a function that gives our customers full visibility into where every part is and what's blocking it, while keeping qualification throughput and confidence in the data extremely high.

• Own Hadrian's end-to-end qualification function — from part intake through technical data evaluation, gap resolution, qualification data package assembly, first article verification, and source approval — in alignment with customer requirements

• Define and maintain qualification scope, and own the qualification pipeline and its workflow automation

• Lead the technical core: direct Product Qualification Managers (PQMs) and Manufacturing/Quality Engineers performing technical data evaluation and qualification data package generation, producing production-ready design data sets and TDPs

• Own qualification performance and reporting — tracking metrics such as time-to-qualification, parts in pipeline, parts qualified, and parts overseen per PQM — and serve as Hadrian's qualification interface to the customer, running part prioritization jointly

• Partner closely with reverse engineering, manufacturing engineering, and quality to ensure qualification outputs translate into producible, source-approved parts, while hiring, developing, and scaling a high-performing qualification organization

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical or Manufacturing Engineering or a related technical field, and 8+ years of experience in qualification, quality, manufacturing engineering, or related leadership roles

• Detailed knowledge of part/product qualification, first article verification, technical data packages (TDPs), and source approval; aviation component qualification is a plus

• Demonstrated ability to interpret and apply complex regulatory and customer requirements based on intent and risk, and to translate them into clear, practical workflows

• Demonstrated ability to build, scale, or significantly improve systems, processes, or organizations in complex, ambiguous environments, including leading and developing high-performing teams

• Strong decision-making in ambiguous, high-risk, customer-facing situations, with excellent communication and cross-functional leadership across engineering, operations, and government customers

• Direct experience with DoW qualification, airworthiness, or source approval processes

• Hands-on experience with technical data package development, reverse engineering, and proprietary data/data rights issues

• Experience standing up qualification pipelines, workflow automation, or supporting tools

• Strong track record of balancing compliance requirements with practical, scalable implementation

• Experience in high-growth or startup manufacturing environments

For this role, the target salary range is $150,000-220,000 (actual range may vary based on experience).

This is the lowest to highest salary we reasonably and in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range, and the range may be modified in the future. An employee's pay position within the salary range will be based on several factors, including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.

• 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

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.

It is the Company’s policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees. The Company does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race inclusive of traits historically associated with race (including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles, such as braids, locks and twists), color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, national origin (including, in California, possession of a drivers license), ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, height or weight, medical condition, family care status, military or veteran status, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, exercise of reproductive rights, any other basis protected by local, state, or federal laws, or any combination of the above characteristics. When necessary, the Company also makes reasonable accommodations for disabled candidates and employees, including for candidates or employees who are disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.