Director of Manufacturing Operations
San Luis Obispo, California, 93401, United States On-site
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About the role
The Director of Operations owns the end-to-end operation that turns engineering designs into delivered aircraft. Reporting to the VP of Operations, you will lead five teams — Production Manufacturing, Manufacturing Engineering, Production Flight Quality Control, Operations Coordination (fulfillment and work orders), and Shipping & Receiving / Warehousing — and hold accountability for safety, quality, on-time delivery, and cost across all of them. This is a builder’s role: as Inspired Flight scales, you will roughly double the size of the operations organization, stand up the processes and systems a larger production floor requires, and develop the frontline leaders who run it day to day. You will balance hands-on, shop-floor leadership with the organizational discipline of a growing company — running production cadence and removing blockers today, while building the headcount plans, standard work, and cross-training depth that let the operation scale tomorrow. The role partners closely with Engineering, Customer Success, and Finance to meet build schedules and delivery commitments. This role will report directly to the VP of Operations within the Operations department. This is a prime opportunity for a highly motivated and creative professional who thrives in a high-growth environment and is looking for career development and advancement.
What you'll bring
- 5–9+ years of operations experience in manufacturing, aerospace, robotics, electronics, or other high-reliability hardware environments.
- Demonstrated ownership of manufacturing + supply chain + fulfillment execution.
- Strong practical knowledge of ERP/MRP, production scheduling, and inventory control.
- Experience driving continuous improvement (Lean, Kaizen, 5S, structured problem solving).
- Proven ability to lead multiple teams and frontline supervisors, manage competing priorities, and build organizational structure in a fast-moving, high-growth environment.
- Experience scaling a manufacturing or operations team through a period of rapid growth — hiring, onboarding, and standing up new processes as volume increases.
- Strong communication and organizational habits
- comfortable coordinating across functions.
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, or related field (or equivalent experience).