Sr. Technical A&D Program Manager

Fathom Mfg•Hartland, WI

12h•$100,000 - $130,000

About The Position

Fathom is seeking a Senior Technical Program Manager to serve as the technical expert for complex, programmatic Aerospace & Defense opportunities. The role is primarily focused on pre-sale activities, including technical discovery, manufacturing solution development, requirements flow-down, value-based selling, and bid/no-bid decisions. The position works directly with customers and Fathom’s Engineering, Sales, Operations, Quality, and Supply Chain teams to develop technically sound and commercially competitive manufacturing solutions. It ensures customer requirements are understood, technical risks are assessed, and proposed commitments are supported by Fathom’s capabilities and execution plans. After program award, the role provides a structured technical handoff to the execution team and remains available for targeted support, particularly on complex quality issues, nonconformances, and RMAs. Its focus is technical leadership and decision-making rather than day-to-day program administration or order management. Periodic travel to customer locations, Fathom facilities, and approved suppliers is required.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering, manufacturing engineering, or a related technical discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
At least 10 years of progressive experience in A&D manufacturing, applications engineering, manufacturing engineering, or technical program management, including significant responsibility for pre-sale technical qualification and solution development.
Demonstrated experience supporting complex, recurring manufacturing programs involving multiple part families, interdependent technical requirements, and production qualification expectations.
Strong technical knowledge of precision CNC machining, multi-axis manufacturing, complex assemblies, aerospace materials, tooling, finishing, and inspection processes.
Ability to interpret engineering drawings, GD&T, specifications, quality clauses, and customer flow-down requirements and translate them into executable manufacturing requirements.
Experience in regulated A&D manufacturing environments and working knowledge of AS9100, ITAR-controlled work, configuration management, traceability, and first-article inspection expectations.
Ability to assess technical feasibility, challenge assumptions, identify manufacturing and supply-chain risks, and make well-supported bid/no-bid decisions.
Strong customer-facing and commercial skills, including presenting differentiated technical solutions, explaining cost drivers, justifying nonrecurring engineering investments, and supporting value-based selling.
Experience investigating manufacturing quality issues and RMAs using structured root-cause analysis and corrective-action methods.
Excellent communication, analytical, and cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to influence customer and internal decisions without direct reporting authority.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting aerospace OEMs, defense prime contractors, or major tier suppliers through technical capture, qualification, and production launch.
Experience developing manufacturing solutions across multiple facilities and external supplier networks.
Familiarity with Nadcap-accredited special processes and additional manufacturing technologies, including additive manufacturing, sheet metal fabrication, and molding.
Experience developing technical business cases for tooling, automation, capital investment, or alternative manufacturing approaches.

Responsibilities

Serve as technical lead for complex A&D program opportunities involving multiple part families, qualification requirements, phased production releases, and recurring manufacturing demand.
Lead technical discovery with customer engineering, procurement, quality, and program management stakeholders to understand applications, requirements, production expectations, qualification milestones, and supplier-selection criteria.
Collaborate with customers and Fathom’s engineering team to develop and value-sell manufacturing solutions, explaining potential improvements to manufacturability, total cost, quality, lead times, and program risk.
Evaluate technical feasibility, capability fit, requirement compliance, qualification burden, capacity constraints, supply-chain dependencies, and commercial viability to make and document bid/no-bid decisions.
Review and interpret customer drawings, models, specifications, GD&T, material and special-processing requirements, inspection criteria, and quality clauses; resolve ambiguities with customers.
Establish and maintain a documented requirements flow-down process, ensuring applicable requirements are captured, reviewed, and incorporated into manufacturing plans, supplier requirements, inspection plans, and quotation assumptions.
Partner with Applications Engineering, site engineering, Operations, and approved manufacturing partners to define manufacturing processes, routing, tooling, fixturing, outside processing, inspection, and production scalability; identify capability gaps and needed validation.
Lead design-for-manufacturability and design-for-assembly discussions, develop alternatives, explain trade-offs, and secure customer approval when design or requirement changes are needed.
Work with Sales, estimating, Finance, and engineering to develop technical proposal inputs, including production assumptions, nonrecurring engineering, tooling, capital requirements, qualification activities, and lead times.
Support customer presentations and technical negotiations while protecting feasibility and margin.
Coordinate with Quality and Compliance to validate quality-system, export-control, customer-specific, and approved-source requirements, and ensure manufacturing locations, supplier participation, and technical-information sharing follow approval processes.
Lead pre-award technical reviews and provide a complete post-award technical handoff, including the approved requirements baseline, manufacturing concept, customer decisions, quote assumptions, technical risks, and qualification requirements.
Provide senior technical support after award for quality issues, nonconformances, and RMAs; collaborate with customers, internal teams, and suppliers on technical evidence, root cause, and corrective actions.
Support technical evaluation of rework, repair, replacement, process changes, and requalification, with dispositions and approvals handled through established Quality and customer processes.
Incorporate lessons learned into future technical reviews, manufacturing approaches, and bid decisions.