Build Engineer, Castings at Hadrian Automation in Los Angeles, CA

Job description

Hadrian - Manufacturing the Future Hadrian is building autonomous factories to reindustrialize America. By combining AI, advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing, we help aerospace and defense companies build rockets, satellites, aircraft, ships, and other mission-critical systems up to 10x faster and at significantly lower cost. Following our $1.37B Series D at a $7.87B valuation, Hadrian is rapidly expanding our manufacturing footprint, launching new capabilities across welding, casting, forging, electronics, additive manufacturing, and more, while scaling our Factory-as-a-Service platform to transform how critical products are built. Backed by leading investors including JPMorgan Chase, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Lux Capital, T. Rowe Price, and Morgan Stanley, we’re building the future of American manufacturing—and looking for exceptional people to help make it happen. If you’re ready to take on the most challenging and rewarding work of your career while helping create American manufacturing jobs for generations to come, you’re exactly who we’re looking for. The Role Hadrian is looking for a Build Engineer, Castings to own large structural castings from the first design review through qualification, ramp, and handoff to standard production, whether we pour them, buy them, or run both paths in parallel. You are the bridge between the product and Capability Engineering: you interpret the product requirements, drive DFM, reverse engineer the product where the data is incomplete, establish the build flow and sequence, and hand Capability Engineering and the foundry a well-defined casting problem to solve. You will own new product and new process introduction for castings end-to-end. Many of the hardest products we build start as a casting, and decisions made at the pattern carry through machining, weld, and final assembly. You set how each casting is made and inspected, define the processes it needs, and work across Design, Supply Chain, supplier foundries, Capability Engineering, Quality, and Operations to bring it to rate. Decisions made during NPI set the cost, lead time, and quality of these castings for their life, and the processes you introduce become casting capabilities Hadrian uses on the programs that follow. What You’ll Do • Interpret and define product requirements from customer specifications, drawings, and contract requirements, and translate them into casting requirements, quality levels, and inspection needs. • Reverse engineer castings and cast assemblies from legacy drawings, incomplete technical data, or physical parts to establish design intent, critical zones, and a buildable sequence. • Review models and drawings for castability, including wall thickness, section changes, draft, parting lines, datum structure, machining stock, shrinkage and porosity risk, and NDT access, and drive changes before design freeze. • Hand a well-defined casting problem to Capability Engineering and the foundry's casting design and simulation team, and review gating, riser, and solidification results against the product requirements. • Define casting quality levels by zone and weld repair limits with Design and Quality. • Own the end-to-end casting route, from pattern through pour, heat treatment, cleaning, NDT, weld repair, and dimensional inspection, to the handoff to machining. • Place datums and machining stock so the first machining setup works the first time. • Define the high-level process for each operation (alloy and condition, quality levels, heat treatment, NDT method and acceptance criteria, and cycle time against rate) and hand it to Capability Engineering complete and on time. • Own design intent for patterns, core boxes, and inspection fixtures, each with a clear owner, location, and revision record. • Build and maintain BOM structures, work orders, and Opus work instructions in Hadrian's PLM, ERP, and MES systems, and own engineering change and conf