Head of Manufacturing

Vulcan Elements • Research Triangle Park, NC

5h

About The Position

Vulcan Elements is manufacturing American rare-earth permanent magnets for a secure, resilient future. With a focus on national security and economic resiliency, we serve critical industries such as defense, aerospace, and automotive powering a high-technology future. Vulcan Elements is building a team of ambitious professionals committed to Mission Focus, Technical Excellence and Transparency.
As the Head of Manufacturing, you will lead the scale-up of Vulcan Elements across operations, manufacturing engineering, quality, and factory functions. This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for executing a production ramp-up within a large 1M+ sqft operation of highly automated advanced manufacturing systems.

Requirements

• 10+ years in manufacturing engineering or operations, ideally within powder metallurgy, advanced materials, rare-earth magnet manufacturing, automotive, battery, or similar high volume manufacturing environments
• 6+ years demonstrated leadership experience in high volume advanced manufacturing
• Bachelors Degree in Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related engineering discipline
• Proven track record scaling complex industrial processes from pilot to production in a leadership position
• Strong analytical, data-driven problem-solving skills and ability to drive accountability and results under tight timeline
• Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export-controlled information or facilities.

Responsibilities

• Define the foundational workflows, staffing models, and factory movements (people + material) to enable efficient, safe, 24×7 production.
• Foster a culture of safety, individual accountability, and technical excellence across all shifts and departments.
• Lead coordination across EHS, Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain, IT, and Operations to ensure synchronized execution of factory scale up objectives.
• Establish readiness plans and escalation systems to ensure uninterrupted production & performance.
• Oversee the development of logistics, material flow, and procurement processes to ensure reliable supply to production lines.
• Lead structured problem-solving and root cause investigations to sustain high uptime and yield.
• Manage technical schedules, budgets, and deliverables aligned with company milestones and customer commitments.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Number of Employees: 11-50 employees