Director of Manufacturing (Design-to-Manufacturing)

Role Overview

The Director of Design-to-Manufacturing (D2M) leads the organization responsible for transforming product and program requirements into controlled, validated, scalable manufacturing and test systems capable of supporting satellite production, integration, verification, and launch readiness. This person ensures engineering intent is developed for production while developing the team through technical guidance, operational excellence, and design-for-excellence feedback to engineering.

The Director provides organizational and technical leadership across three D2M sub-domains :

Manufacturing Systems & MGSE

Verification & Validation Test Engineering

Test Platform & EGSE

The Director establishes the D2M technical operating model connecting Product Engineering to D2M to AIT Operations, ensuring engineering intent can be repeatedly built, integrated, tested, supported, and improved throughout the product lifecycle.

Own the industrialization of Orbitworks' products from engineering definition through manufacturing and test readiness, ensuring satellite designs can be repeatedly manufactured, integrated, verified, and sustained at the required quality, schedule, cost, and production rate.

Day-to-day responsibilities

• Lead manufacturing and test teams: Manage Manufacturing Systems & Mechanical Ground Support Equipment (MGSE), Verification & Validation Test Engineering, and Test Platforms & Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE).
• Turn engineering requirements into production-ready processes: Oversee work instructions, bills of materials, routings, assembly workflows, tooling, fixtures, and process validation.
• Ensure test readiness: Oversee test methods, procedures, scripts, limits, configurations, coverage, and verification evidence.
• Own test infrastructure readiness: Guide the development, validation, deployment, and maintenance of test benches, instrumentation, automation, networking, and spacecraft interfaces.
• Review designs for manufacturability and testability: Work with mechanical, electrical, software, and systems engineering to identify constraints early and reduce rework.
• Resolve manufacturing and test issues: Coordinate root-cause investigations, troubleshoot bottlenecks, and drive corrective actions.
• Manage priorities and performance: Track readiness, quality, schedule, cost, throughput, risks, and resource needs.
• Standardize and scale operations: Establish reusable tooling, test platforms, common standards, and predictable handoffs to Assembly, Integration and Test (AIT).
• Coach and develop the team: Clarify ownership, strengthen technical leadership, and improve cross-functional collaboration.

Must-haves

• Strong manufacturing engineering and test engineering experience, translating complex designs into practical manufacturing and verification systems.
• MGSE and EGSE expertise, including development, implementation, validation, and ongoing support.
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop/software-in-the-loop (HIL/SIL) or similarly complex integration and test environments.
• Practical Design for Manufacturing, Assembly and Test (DFM/DFA/DFT) knowledge, with examples of influencing design decisions.
• Proven technical team leadership and coaching, ideally across multiple engineering disciplines.
• Strong collaboration across engineering, production, quality, supply chain, and programs.
• Hands-on problem-solving and delivery under pressure, supported by examples of shipping complex hardware and resolving real production issues.

Good-to-haves

• Direct satellite or aerospace manufacturing experience.
• Electronics or defence/DoD manufacturing experience involving complex, high-reliability systems.
• Familiarity with ERP/MES systems for production workflows, reporting, and traceability.
• Experience with agile or concurrent engineering, rapid prototyping, and iterative engineering-to-manufacturing handoffs.
• Knowledge of AS9100 and ISO 9001 quality standards.

Orbitworks' mission is to make space simple for organizations that want to deploy physical and virtual missions to space. Building on Loft Orbital's heritage, Orbitworks will be the first commercial firm in the United Arab Emirates to mass-manufacture satellites. Orbitworks aims to manufacture tens of satellites annually and operates out of a 50,000-square-foot facility in Abu Dhabi.