---
title: 'Director of Manufacturing (Design-to-Manufacturing) at Loft Orbital Solutions'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-manufacturing-design-to-manufacturing-loft-orbital-solutions-abu-b02vzsj8vqyh'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-20'
---

# Director of Manufacturing (Design-to-Manufacturing) at Loft Orbital Solutions

- **Company:** Loft Orbital Solutions
- **Location:** Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-15
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-20
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/loftorbital/2f8fe8c0-9412-47bd-8035-03bbdc742983

## Job description

## Role Overview

The Director of Design-to-Manufacturing (D2M) leads the organization responsible for transforming product and program requirements into controlled, validated, scalable manufacturing and test systems capable of supporting satellite production, integration, verification, and launch readiness. This person ensures engineering intent is developed for production while developing the team through technical guidance, operational excellence, and design-for-excellence feedback to engineering. The Director provides organizational and technical leadership across three D2M sub-domains : Manufacturing Systems & MGSE Verification & Validation Test Engineering Test Platform & EGSEThe Director establishes the D2M technical operating model connecting Product Engineering to D2M to AIT Operations, ensuring engineering intent can be repeatedly built, integrated, tested, supported, and improved throughout the product lifecycle.

Own the industrialization of Orbitworks' products from engineering definition through manufacturing and test readiness, ensuring satellite designs can be repeatedly manufactured, integrated, verified, and sustained at the required quality, schedule, cost, and production rate.

Day-to-day responsibilities

- Lead manufacturing and test teams: Manage Manufacturing Systems & Mechanical Ground Support Equipment (MGSE), Verification & Validation Test Engineering, and Test Platforms & Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE).
- Turn engineering requirements into production-ready processes: Oversee work instructions, bills of materials, routings, assembly workflows, tooling, fixtures, and process validation.
- Ensure test readiness: Oversee test methods, procedures, scripts, limits, configurations, coverage, and verification evidence.
- Own test infrastructure readiness: Guide the development, validation, deployment, and maintenance of test benches, instrumentation, automation, networking, and spacecraft interfaces.
- Review designs for manufacturability and testability: Work with mechanical, electrical, software, and systems engineering to identify constraints early and reduce rework.
- Resolve manufacturing and test issues: Coordinate root-cause investigations, troubleshoot bottlenecks, and drive corrective actions.
- Manage priorities and performance: Track readiness, quality, schedule, cost, throughput, risks, and resource needs.
- Standardize and scale operations: Establish reusable tooling, test platforms, common standards, and predictable handoffs to Assembly, Integration and Test (AIT).
- Coach and develop the team: Clarify ownership, strengthen technical leadership, and improve cross-functional collaboration.

Must-haves

- Strong manufacturing engineering and test engineering experience, translating complex designs into practical 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, supported by examples of shipping complex hardware and resolving real production issues.

Good-to-haves

- 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.

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.

## About Loft Orbital Solutions

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Loft Orbital is a space infrastructure company that provides simple, fast, and reliable ways for customers to deploy and operate physical payloads and software missions in low Earth orbit.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C – $170M round announced, total funding $326.9M)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States (with additional offices in Golden, Colorado and Toulouse, France)
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Not listed in provided sources

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Defense and Space Manufacturing
- **Target Customers**: B2B – commercial space startups, established aerospace and defense primes, cloud and AI companies, and government agencies worldwide (including U..S, France, Canada)
- **Mission/Purpose**: “Space Made Simple” – enabling customers to focus on their mission while Loft handles end-to-end space infrastructure

## Products & Services
- **Physical Payload Missions**: Loft integrates, tests, launches, and operates customer hardware payloads on its standardized satellite platforms (e.g.., optical, hyperspectral, RF sensors).
- **Virtual / Software-Only Missions**: Customers can deploy software directly to Loft’s on-orbit satellites to process and analyze data in near-real time (e..g., AI edge processing via partners like SkyServe, SSCI).
- **YAM (Yet Another Mission)** satellites: A fleet of multi-mission satellite buses available for rapid deployment; Loft maintains an inventory of pre-assembled platforms.
- **Hub & Cockpit**: Proprietary hardware and software abstraction layers that simplify payload integration and satellite operations.
- **Loft Federal**: A FOCI-mitigated division focused on US national security space missions (only US citizens).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (total funding $326..9M – LinkedIn)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding $326..9M (8 rounds incl. $170M Series C); Annual Revenue estimated $27..8M (LinkedIn)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Lead seed investor Uncork Capital; partners include Honeywell (Canadian Space Agency mission), Wyvern (Dragonette constellation), Esper, Helsing, SmartSat CRC, EarthDaily ($150M constellation), SkyServe, SSCI, Airbus OneWeb Satellites (15 bus order).
- **Growth Signals**: 270 employees (+14.9% YoY), 41k+ LinkedIn followers (+41.4% YoY), 14 satellites launched, 60+ customers, 15+ AI missions on-orbit, selected as prime contractor for France’s first space-based radar imaging program.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Standardized Satellite Platform**: Uses a commodity satellite bus with custom hardware/software layers, eliminating non-recurring engineering and enabling “turnkey” plug-and-play.
- **Speed to Orbit**: Maintains an inventory of pre-assembled buses and pre-booked launches, drastically reducing lead times compared to traditional aerospace.
- **Flight Heritage**: Over 600 copies of the bus in orbit today, providing proven reliability
- **Misson Agnosticism**: Can fly any payload that fits within standard platform constraints; supports both physical and virtual missions.

## Strategic Focus
- **Expand AI Edge Computing**: Deploying onboard AI processing (e..g., STORM from SkyServe, POET experiment for SDA) to enable near-real-time decision making.
- **National Security Growth**: Loft Federal continues to win US government contracts.
- **Constellation Scale-Up**: Partnering with EarthDaily for $150M satellite constellation; ordering 15 additional buses from Airbus OneWeb.
- **International Partnerships**: Strengthening ties with France (prime contractor for radar imaging) and Canada (SmartSat CRC, Honeywell).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Collaborative, respectful, professional environment described as “non-negotiable.” Rated 4..5/5 on LinkedIn (35 reviews) with Culture 4.5, Compensation 4.1, Work-Life 3.6, Career 4.2.
- **Wor Environment**: Distributed team with core hubs in San Francisco, Golden (CO), and Toulouse. Supports remote collaboration but roles may require on-site presence (per job listings). Recruiting process involves intro call, technical screening, challenge, and hiring panel.
- **Notable Perks**: Opportunity to work on cutting-edge space infrastructure with a fast-growing company; involvement in both commercial and government missions; international team.

## Sources
1. [loftorbital..com](https://loftorbital.com/)
2. [loftorbital.com/about/](https://loftorbital.com/about/)
3. [loftorbital.com/careers/](https://loftorbital.com/careers/)
4. [jobs.lever.co/loftorbital](https://jobs.lever.co/loftorbital/)
5. [linkedin.com/company/loft-orbital](https://www.linkedin.com/company/loft-orbital)

## Other roles at Loft Orbital Solutions

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