Senior Manager, Test Operations, Space

ABOUT THE TEAM

We are seeking a highly experienced and dynamic Senior Manager, Test Operationsto lead our Development and Production Testing efforts across multiple critical space programs.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

Anduril's Space business is standing up manufacturing and test for multiple space vehicle lines at once — moving from development builds today into full rate production within four years. The Senior Manager, Test Operations will build and lead the test organization that makes that ramp possible: vehicle and subassembly acceptance and qualification test, environmental test operations, test station and ground support equipment engineering, and the procedures and data systems behind them.

This is a build role, not a sustaining one. The production test organization does not exist yet — you will define it, hire it, and stand up its capability inside a new production facility whose environmental test infrastructure is still being defined. Test throughput and cost-effectiveness are the binding constraint on our production rate; architecture decisions defined today will have lasting impacts to production rate success.

Test Organization and Leadership

• Recruit, mentor and lead a multi-domain test organization spanning functional and electrical test, environmental test, test station and GSE engineering, and test operations — growing from initial hires toward a projected 40+ positions through the production ramp.
• Own the transfer of test knowledge, procedures and tooling from development-site test engineers into the production test team, including training, certification and proficiency standards for test engineers and technicians.
• Coordinate closely with Launch Operations stakeholders to ensure all System Test procedures, resources, and approval criteria are followed during launch campaigns. As needed, deployed Test personnel to support, train, and oversee launch operations to ensure compliance.

Test Campaign Definition and Execution

• Define and own vehicle-level and subassembly acceptance test procedures and qualification campaigns, including test flow, entrance and exit criteria, and data review gates.
• Lead Test Readiness Reviews and test campaign readiness assessments; serve as approval authority for test procedures run on flight hardware.
• Own environmental test execution — thermal vacuum, sine and random vibration, acoustic, shock, thermal cycling, and EMI/EMC — including chamber and table scheduling, fixture and instrumentation readiness, and anomaly disposition.

Design for Test

• Drive design-for-test requirements into vehicle, payload and subassembly designs before CDR, with the explicit objective of reducing test duration and test station count at rate.
• Challenge inherited test requirements: identify tests that can be combined, moved to a lower assembly level, automated, or eliminated at acceptable risk, and carry those cases through the requirement owners with data.

Capability, Facility and Rate

• Specify production environmental test capability — chamber count and size, vibration table capacity, EMI/EMC screen rooms — and own the test capacity model behind it.
• Represent test operations up and out: support proposal development and Basis of Estimate content for test scope, present at technical and milestone reviews, and brief customers and business line leadership on test readiness, capability and risk.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, physics or a related technical field.
• 10+ years in spacecraft or space vehicle integration and test, including 5+ years leading test engineers or technicians, and technical lead or manager on at least two complete environmental qualification or acceptance campaigns from procedure definition through data review and disposition.
• Hands-on ownership of at least three of: thermal vacuum, sine or random vibration, acoustic, shock, thermal cycling, EMI/EMC to MIL-STD-461 or equivalent.
• Managed a team of 10 or more engineers and/or technicians spanning at least two test domains — for example functional and electrical test plus environmental test, or test operations plus test station engineering.
• Working knowledge of a recognized space test standard such as SMC-S-016, GSFC-STD-7000 (GEVS) or MIL-STD-1540, including where you tailored it and why.
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• A quantified improvement in test throughput or cycle time that you can explain mechanically — for example scaling test capacity by 3x or more, or reducing test flow duration by 20% or more.
• Authored or approved 10 or more test procedures executed on flight hardware.
• Has represented a test or manufacturing organization up and out: contributed to proposal and Basis of Estimate content, and briefed customers or executive leadership on readiness and risk. Both the written and the in-person sides matter here.
• Stood up an environmental test capability or a test organization from zero — chamber and table procurement, commissioning, facility interface, first-article campaigns.
• Took a spacecraft or complex electromechanical product from single-digit annual builds into rate production of 100+ units per year.
• Supported space vehicle test through to Launch and Operations
• Python scripting and test automation; experience with automated test execution and test data pipelines.
• Operated in both classified and unclassified cleanroom environments.
• Currently possesses and is able to maintain an active U.S. Top Secret or U.S. Top Secret SCI security clearance