Production Manager, Las Vegas Manufacturing

Company: Defense-technology company (name shared under NDA)
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, on-site
Type: Full-time
Compensation: $125,000 to $155,000
Eligibility: U.S. citizenship required

Confidential Search · Defense Technology

Confidential search. The hiring company's identity is shared with candidates under NDA.

A founder-led defense technology company building deployable position, navigation, and timing (PNT) hardware for the U.S. Army. The company is moving three product lines out of prototype and onto a production floor of its own in Las Vegas, with engineering based in Northern Virginia. This is a place where the work you own is the work that ships: a small team, real hardware, and fielding timelines that do not move.

You run the floor. You are the primary operational authority for everything that happens in the company's Las Vegas manufacturing facility: the people, the schedule, the quality regime, and the culture. You are hiring and training a production workforce that does not exist yet, in a facility that is still being outfitted, against LRIP delivery commitments that do not move.

This is a build job before it is a run job. Someone who wants a mature line with mature people should not apply.

• Production management framework. Production scheduling, work order management, labor assignment, shift planning, daily production reporting, and performance metrics tracked against Year 1 LRIP targets across three product lines.
• The workforce. Hire, onboard, and train the production technician team. Own on-the-job training and ensure every technician is qualified against the documented assembly procedures before touching a live production lot.
• Quality regime. Working with the Manufacturing Engineer and QA technicians, define inspection points, acceptance criteria, and nonconformance management, and enforce them consistently across every production activity.
• Facility outfitting. Manage the sequencing of tooling delivery, workstation installation, utility connections, and safety compliance so the floor is operational and certified for LRIP production on schedule.
• Standards and supervision. Formulate and enforce work standards, assign schedules, review work discrepancies, supervise production personnel, and carry the company's policies and goals to the floor.

• Substantial progressive experience managing electronics or precision hardware production, with direct supervisory responsibility for a production workforce. The contract labor category for this position specifies 20 or more years of experience and may require an advanced degree.
• Demonstrated experience hiring and training a production team from a standing start, or scaling one materially.
• Command of production scheduling and work order management systems (ERP and MES), labor planning, and daily production metrics.
• Quality management fluency, covering inspection regimes, nonconformance and material review board processes, and corrective action.
• Direct experience taking a facility from outfitting to certified production operations.
• U.S. citizenship, and the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.

• Defense or aerospace production management under AS9100.
• Low-rate initial production experience, with comfort around the volumes, variability, and change traffic of an immature line.
• Prior military maintenance or production leadership.
• Lean manufacturing or Six Sigma implementation on a live floor.

• This is a confidential search. An NDA is required before the company's identity and full role details are shared. We screen for interest at a high level first, then read candidates in once an NDA is in place.

This position supports U.S. Government work subject to export control regulations. Applicants must be U.S. persons. The hiring company is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.