Member of Technical Staff, Principal Manufacturing

Ironstead•Denver, CO

About The Position

Ironstead Industrial Inc. acquires precision machine shops and manufacturing businesses across aerospace/defense, maritime, and commercial sectors and transforms them into modern, data-driven operations. Its IronsteadOS platform connects customer design through final inspection and logistics. The Member of Technical Staff, Principal Manufacturing serves as a senior technical authority for Design for X across Ironstead’s manufacturing platform. The role determines whether complex designs can be built reliably at the required quality, cost, lead time, and scale. It reviews customer designs, identifies manufacturing risks early, and works with customers, design engineers, suppliers, machinists, manufacturing engineers, and quality teams to develop robust production strategies. The position considers the complete manufacturing system, including process selection, assembly, inspection, supply chain, tooling, automation, quality, cost, and scalability. It also helps implement production strategies on the shop floor and advances standardized and software-enabled DfX practices across the company’s network.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, manufacturing, aerospace, industrial engineering, or a related technical discipline.
Significant experience designing, manufacturing, or industrializing complex mechanical products.
Strong knowledge of GD&T, tolerance analysis, materials, surface finishes, inspection, and process capability.
Experience taking products from design review through first article and stable production.
Strong shop-floor problem-solving skills and ability to balance product performance, manufacturing risk, quality, cost, lead time, and scalability.
Willingness to travel 60–80% and work on-site at Ironstead portfolio facilities for extended periods, including some nights and weekends during critical transition windows.
Ability to work extended hours, including nights and weekends, during active deployment windows.
Ability to pass any background or export-compliance screening required for defense-related client sites.
U.S. citizenship required due to ITAR/export-control considerations.

Nice To Haves

Deep experience in one or more of machining, fabrication, assembly, additive manufacturing, castings, forgings, or special processes.
Experience with NPI, PPAP, PFMEA, control plans, production-readiness reviews, or industrialization.
Experience developing manufacturing cost models or supporting complex quoting decisions.
Experience building automated or software-assisted DfX tools.
Experience with CAD, CAM, PLM, MES, ERP, QMS, or quoting systems.

Responsibilities

Architect a unified, portfolio-wide view of manufacturing capabilities and constraints to drive scalable industrialization.
Translate complex product designs into manufacturing strategies, including process sequences, capital equipment specifications, workholding, inspection plans, and production-readiness roadmaps.
Support strategic sourcing and capital allocation decisions by evaluating internal capacity, network leverage, supplier development, automation opportunities, and capital investments.
Lead root-cause resolution for critical production failures involving process capability, tolerance accumulation, assembly, tooling, material behavior, and flow bottlenecks.
Advance digital manufacturing workflows in IronsteadOS, including automated design reviews, algorithmic quoting, and software-enabled process planning.
Create a standardized Ironstead DfX framework with design rules, process-selection logic, review checklists, and gate criteria.
Evaluate CAD models, technical drawings, and engineering specifications to align manufacturability, assembly sequence, inspectability, and unit economics early.
Identify high-risk design features, including aspect ratios, thin-wall dynamics, tight tolerance stacks, joining constraints, and tool reach.
Challenge overly conservative drawing requirements and distinguish functional requirements from specifications that unnecessarily increase cost, lead time, or yield loss.
Apply DfX principles across multi-axis machining, sheet metal fabrication, additive manufacturing, casting, forging, and specialized post-processing.
Travel extensively and embed at Ironstead portfolio facilities for extended periods, including during critical transition windows.