Director of Manufacturing (Design-to-Manufacturing)

The role

You will lead the group that turns satellite designs into production-ready manufacturing and test systems. You will manage manufacturing and test teams and work with engineering so that designs can be built, integrated, verified and supported at the required quality, schedule, cost and rate.

What you will do

• Lead manufacturing and test teams across MGSE, verification and validation test engineering, and test platforms and EGSE.
• Turn engineering requirements into production-ready processes, including work instructions, bills of materials, routings, tooling and process validation.
• Oversee test methods, procedures, scripts, limits, configurations, coverage and verification evidence.
• Guide development, validation, deployment and maintenance of test benches, instrumentation, automation and spacecraft interfaces.
• Review designs for manufacturability and testability with mechanical, electrical, software and systems engineering.
• Coordinate root-cause investigations, troubleshoot bottlenecks and drive corrective actions.
• Track readiness, quality, schedule, cost, throughput, risks and resource needs.
• Establish reusable tooling, test platforms, common standards and predictable handoffs to Assembly, Integration and Test.
• Coach and develop the team, clarify ownership and improve cross-functional collaboration.

Required qualifications

• Strong manufacturing engineering and test engineering experience translating complex designs into manufacturing and verification systems.
• MGSE and EGSE expertise, including development, implementation, validation and ongoing support.
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop/software-in-the-loop (HIL/SIL) or similarly complex integration and test environments.
• Practical Design for Manufacturing, Assembly and Test (DFM/DFA/DFT) knowledge, with examples of influencing design decisions.
• Proven technical team leadership and coaching, ideally across multiple engineering disciplines.
• Strong collaboration across engineering, production, quality, supply chain and programs.
• Hands-on problem-solving and delivery under pressure, with examples of shipping complex hardware and resolving real production issues.

Nice to have

• Direct satellite or aerospace manufacturing experience.
• Electronics or defence/DoD manufacturing experience involving complex, high-reliability systems.
• Familiarity with ERP/MES systems for production workflows, reporting and traceability.
• Experience with agile or concurrent engineering, rapid prototyping and iterative engineering-to-manufacturing handoffs.
• Knowledge of AS9100 and ISO 9001 quality standards.

About the company

Orbitworks aims to make space simple for organizations that want to deploy physical and virtual missions to space. It will be the first commercial firm in the United Arab Emirates to mass-manufacture satellites, aiming for tens of satellites annually.