Head of Manufacturing

WindBorne Systems•Palo Alto, CA

22h•Onsite

About The Position

You can’t have good forecasts without good data, and according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 85% of the planet is inadequately observed. WindBorne designs, manufactures, and operates Atlas, the world’s largest (and only) constellation of autonomous high-altitude weather balloons. These weather balloons fly all over the world, collecting unique data that would be impossible to get through traditional means. WindBorne is looking for a Head of Manufacturing to own and scale our production systems. We double manufacturing output every six months, and we need someone who can build the organization, processes, and infrastructure to sustain that pace as we scale toward thousands of balloons aloft simultaneously. This is not a role for someone who just wants to maintain an established, optimized factory. Our hardware is an unconventional mixture of soft goods (thin, heat-sealed plastic), finicky actuators, and delicate sensors. We run a Responsible Engineer (RE) model, where vertically integrated hardware engineers own both the part design and the design/maintenance of the manufacturing tooling and process. Our engineering team is constantly iterating on designs, which means the thing you're building today will not be the thing you're building next month. The work is less about any particular manufacturing process and more about the steady accumulation of good small decisions that let a scrappy operation quadruple in size within a year. The systems that got us to 500 balloons a month will not be the process that gets you to 5,000, and much of what you build today you'll deliberately throw away in six months. Your job is to build systems that make the next bottleneck visible before it becomes a crisis, so you always know where to invest effort next.

Requirements

Strong instinct for the right level of process formalization at each stage of growth—enough structure to be reliable, not so much that you can’t iterate
Comfort with ambiguity and rapid design iteration; you’ve manufactured products that were still being actively engineered
Excellent communication skills and the ability to work across engineering, operations, and leadership
Hands-on manufacturing engineering chops—you can diagnose a process problem, design a fixture, and train a technician to use it

Nice To Haves

Experience with lightweight structures, composites, or flexible materials manufacturing
Familiarity with electromechanical assembly, sensors, and actuator systems
Experience working with rapid prototyping tools (3D printing, laser cutting) and integrating them into production workflows
Proficiency with code (Python) for manufacturing data analysis, process automation, or tooling control
Experience transitioning R&D prototypes to scaled production
Bachelor’s degree or higher in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related field

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end manufacturing function: production planning, process development, quality, facilities, and the team that runs it all
Scale balloon production from an order of hundreds/month to thousands, while also juggling the concerns of cost, quality, and platform flexibility
Drive design-for-manufacturability upstream by partnering closely with R&D and engineering—knowing when to push back on a design and when to push manufacturing forward to meet it
Lead the manufacturing team: decide short-term and long-term goals,define the roles of team members, and create a culture of ownership and continuous improvement