Spacecraft Production Control Manager

K2 Space•Los Angeles, CA

6d•$135,000 - $175,000

About The Position

K2 Space is building high-power satellite platforms for commercial and U.S. government missions across multiple orbits. The company is scaling production, with multiple launches planned in 2027 and plans to produce 100 satellites per year. The Spacecraft Production Control Manager will own manufacturing scheduling, production coordination, and material readiness across satellite production work centers. This person will build and lead the Production Control function, determine what is built and when, and manage the systems and team responsible for factory readiness and execution. The role works closely with Production Leadership, Supply Chain, Manufacturing Engineering, and Quality to maintain production flow, resolve constraints, and establish scalable processes as production rates increase. The position calls for a hands-on manufacturing leader with substantial production planning experience and a track record of building teams, establishing processes, and driving accountability in a fast-paced environment. The role also requires access to information and items controlled by U.S. export regulations; the person hired must be a U.S. person as defined by the applicable regulation or otherwise eligible for a federally issued export control license.

Requirements

At least 8 years of experience in production control, scheduling, or production planning in a high-volume, rapid-production environment in aerospace, defense, or complex hardware manufacturing.
At least 3 years of experience managing schedulers, planners, or coordinators.
Experience building or scaling a production control or planning function.
Experience owning a factory-level production schedule through a rate ramp.
Deep working knowledge of build trees, bills of materials, routings, work orders, MRP/ERP, and MES data flow.
Experience building capacity and scheduling models that drive start, staffing, and capital expenditure decisions.
Strong floor-presence experience partnering with supervisors, engineering, and leadership.

Nice To Haves

Experience in spacecraft, launch vehicle, defense, or complex electromechanical manufacturing.
Experience with production analytics tools such as Smartsheet, SQL, Python, or Power BI for shortage monitoring and schedule automation.
Bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, operations research, supply chain, or a related engineering field.

Responsibilities

Own Production Control operations, including manufacturing scheduling, production coordination, work order readiness, and work-in-progress management.
Grow the Production Control team by hiring and developing Production Schedulers and Production Coordinators.
Own the integrated factory schedule, translating program delivery milestones into rate-based vehicle takt, subassembly starts, and prioritized work order lists for daily and weekly work-center goals.
Develop hardware allocation scenarios that consider customer needs, delivery milestones, and quality requirements, and align stakeholders on build priorities.
Establish manufacturing readiness processes covering material availability, work orders, tooling, labor capacity, and engineering requirements.
Develop production control systems, including automated schedules, capacity models, and readiness models integrated across MES, Smartsheet, and internal tools.
Monitor SQL-based MRP and partner with Supply Chain to resolve shortages and align supplier commitments with manufacturing demand.
Conduct work-center and factory-level capacity analysis and recommend staffing, capital expenditure, and process changes for each production-rate step.
Establish and monitor KPIs for schedule attainment, manufacturing readiness, work-in-progress, production flow, and on-time delivery.
Lead root-cause analysis and corrective action for schedule slips across assembly and integration.
Communicate production risks, resource requirements, and recovery plans to the Director of Production and VP of Manufacturing.