About the Role
Orbitworks is seeking a Senior Industrial Engineer to lead the industrialization of our satellite products and build the production capability needed to deliver them at scale. Based at our KEZAD facility in Abu Dhabi and reporting to the SVP of Operations, you'll connect product design, assembly and test methods, infrastructure, equipment, workforce capability, and material availability into a working industrial solution for a medium-mix, medium-to-low-volume production environment.
You'll own the industrialization workstream end-to-end — from product assessment and partner transfer through new product introduction (NPI), deployment, production readiness, ramp-up, and handover — while personally developing capacity models and industrial solutions and working hands-on on the production floor. This is a strategic, hands-on individual-contributor role: you'll need strong technical judgment, the ability to influence without formal authority, and the persistence to see implementation through. As the business grows, scope can expand into broader portfolio ownership, technical leadership, and building out an industrialization team.
What You'll do:
- Own the industrialization strategy and integrated delivery plan — translating product, demand, and business objectives into rate targets, work packages, owners, milestones, resources, budget needs, dependencies, risks, and acceptance criteria.
- Work with Engineering/D2M and AIT to define build sequence, work breakdown, routings, assembly and test flows, and manufacturing data needs, driving design for manufacture, assembly, test, access, and repeatability.
- Build version-controlled capacity models from execution data, time studies, engineering estimates, and partner data, and balance cells and workflows to the required production rate.
- Develop layouts, workstations, material flow, buffers, WIP policies, cleanroom zoning, and kitting interfaces, comparing fixed-station, cellular, parallel, and flow approaches against product and rate constraints.
- Define and deliver industrial asset work packages for ground support equipment, test assets, utilities, and facility changes, driving procurement, installation, commissioning, and handover.
- Lead the industrialization interface with external partners — agreeing technical deliverables, owners, dates, and acceptance criteria for product data, methods, tooling, training, and test interfaces.
- Lead industrial readiness assessments, closing process, equipment, documentation, training, supply, and infrastructure gaps, and securing production-release decisions through Orbitworks' readiness and change reviews.
- Lead pilots and support ramp-up on the production floor, validating assumptions, resolving constraints, and demonstrating agreed rate, mix, quality, and resource performance.
- Define rate, lead-time, WIP, capacity, labor, quality, and constraint metrics, and drive improvements that produce sustained, system-level results.
- Develop investment and resource options, lead delivery reviews, coach contributors, and establish reusable models, standards, and decision records.
What you'll Need:
- 7–12 years in industrial, manufacturing, or production engineering, with an engineering degree or equivalent demonstrated capability.
- Direct, hands-on experience in satellite assembly, integration, test, or comparable space hardware production, with industrialization responsibility at the system or subsystem level. General aerospace experience alone doesn't meet this requirement.
- A track record of owning an integrated industrialization workstream through deployment, ramp-up, and acceptance, with plans, milestones, resource or investment decisions, recovery actions, and measured outcomes to show for it.
- Strong capacity modeling and line balancing skills — building auditable models of mixed-product demand, process precedence, labor skills, equipment occupancy, calendars, variability, rework, and bottlenecks.
- Production engineering depth: routings, work instructions, tooling, process control, work measurement, layout, material flow, WIP, and producibility, with the ability to translate drawings and test requirements into industrial requirements.
- Experience defining and delivering production or test capability through requirements, procurement, commissioning, acceptance, and operational handover.
- Skill in extracting usable technical inputs from external partners, tracking assumptions and gaps, and following through until the local production solution works.
- Proven ability to manage cross-functional work packages, dependencies, risks, and commitments as an individual contributor, without relying on formal line authority. Formal people-management experience is not required.
- Strong spreadsheet and data analysis skills, with models that have traceable sources, units, assumptions, and actual-versus-plan checks.
- Understanding of traceability, controlled baselines, manufacturing/test readiness, and change impact in high-reliability hardware.
- Clear technical English, concise written communication, effective shop-floor engagement, willingness to work onsite in Abu Dhabi, and the ability to travel to partners as needed.
Nice to Have
- Experience ramping a LEO constellation from first units into repeat production.
- Having commissioned a cleanroom, production area, or major test capability, including utilities, safety, and contamination control.
- Experience phasing new products or upgrades into a shared industrial asset while protecting existing delivery commitments.
- Discrete-event simulation and optimization experience for problems beyond spreadsheet capability.
- Practical experience with MES, ERP, PLM, manufacturing BOM, routing, and dashboard tools.
- Ability to build labor, recurring cost, capex, and make-versus-buy scenarios with Finance and Supply Chain.
- Applied Lean or Six Sigma experience in complex production environments, with measured results (certification alone isn't a differentiator).
- Experience assessing supplier process capacity and supporting local supplier capability development.
- A track record of coaching and raising colleagues' capability without relying on formal management authority.
Orbitworks' mission is to make space simple for organizations that want to deploy physical and virtual missions to space. Building on Loft Orbital's heritage, Orbitworks will be the first commercial firm in the United Arab Emirates to mass-manufacture satellites. Orbitworks aims to manufacture tens of satellites annually and operates out of a 50,000-square-foot facility in Abu Dhabi.
