Experiential Marketing Manager

Hadrian Automation • Torrance, CA

3d • $224,000 - $260,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Hadrian is seeking an Experiential Marketing Manager to be the sole owner of our events portfolio, managing everything from small dinners to large-scale launch events. This role is crucial because physical experiences are considered Hadrian's highest-conviction channel for reaching key talent like engineers and machinists. The manager will be responsible for engineering and executing these encounters at scale across multiple cities. The role involves end-to-end ownership of strategy, calendar, budget, vendors, production, staffing, and follow-through to convert events into hires or customer conversations. This is a builder role with significant budget and autonomy.

Requirements

• 8+ years in experiential marketing, brand events, or event production, including ownership of a full portfolio and budget rather than support on individual events.
• Experience creating an event or a series that did not exist before, including the strategy and the operating model behind it, not only executing an established annual calendar.
• Personal experience running complex live production, understanding load-in issues, realistic build timelines, and holding venues/vendors to contracts.
• Comfort staffing and directing senior executives in live settings, providing clear direction, and remaining calm under pressure.
• Commercial judgment to defend budget and differentiate between impactful experiences and mere line items.
• Ability to bring structure to a function lacking it and build processes as you go.
• Willingness to travel frequently and work evenings and weekends around event dates.
• U.S. person status required.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance is a plus.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in hard technology, aerospace, defense, automotive, robotics, or another industry where the product is physical and the facility itself is the best asset.
• A track record running events specifically against technical recruiting goals, with evidence that they produced hires.
• Experience activating industrial or non-traditional spaces, including factories, hangars, shipyards, and construction sites, and working inside real safety and access constraints.
• Fluency integrating live moments with a broader campaign, including out of home, social, and video capture on site.
• Experience in a company scaling quickly across multiple physical locations at once.

Responsibilities

• Own the full events and experiential calendar end to end, across owned events, recruiting events, executive hosting, site and factory moments, and our presence at third-party industry conferences.
• Build the portfolio strategy: decide what we show up to, what we build ourselves, what we sponsor, and what we decline, and be able to defend each call on audience and cost.
• Own the events budget, including vendor selection, negotiation, production spend, and reconciliation. Bring a point of view on where a dollar buys more experience.
• Lead production on flagship brand and launch events, including the format decision, venue and site selection, run of show, talent and speaker logistics, and executive prep.
• Design factory and site experiences that let people see the machines and the work. Partner closely with site leadership and operations so that hosting visitors never compromises production, safety, or export-control obligations.
• Sequence events against the broader campaign calendar, including out of home, content, and media moments, so that a launch reads as one connected push rather than several unrelated dates.
• Build a repeatable cadence of recruiting-driven experiences: curated dinners and salons, technical talks and demo nights, happy hours near our sites, and targeted socials for specific engineering and skilled-trade audiences.
• Partner with talent brand and recruiting on invite strategy, guest curation, and the handoff that turns an attendee into a pipeline candidate. Attendance is not the metric. Conversations and hires are.
• Develop formats that travel, so a dinner series or demo night can run in a new city without rebuilding it from scratch each time.
• Stand up the operating infrastructure this function currently lacks: a single source-of-truth events calendar, briefing and run-of-show templates, vendor roster, budget tracker, and post-event debriefs.
• Define what success means per event type before the event happens, then report honestly against it, including when something did not work.
• Manage agencies, production partners, and contract staff. Hold them to a standard and replace them when they miss it.
• Work directly with the executive team, including the CEO, on hosting, speaking moments, and the guest experience for high-stakes visits.
• Coordinate with communications on anything press-facing, and respect the review paths that govern customer, program, and export-controlled information.
• Partner with government relations and policy on conference presence and official visits as those functions come online.

Benefits

• 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

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed