Lead Design Engineer, Additive Manufacturing

Lead Design Engineer, Additive Manufacturing Hadrian - Manufacturing the Future Hadrian is building autonomous factories that help aerospace and defense companies manufacture rockets, satellites, jets, and ships up to 10x faster and up to 2x cheaper. By combining advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing, we are reinventing how America produces its most critical parts. We’re accelerating our mission with the launch of Factory 3 in Mesa, Arizona, a 290,000-square-foot facility creating 350 new jobs. We are expanding rapidly to support thousands of future hires, launching Hadrian Maritime to expand into naval production, and introducing a Factory-as-a-Service model that delivers complete systems instead of individual parts. Hadrian is backed by leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, and Andreessen Horowitz, our fast-growing team is united around reindustrializing American manufacturing for the 21st century and beyond The Role: We are seeking a customer-facing Technical Lead with demonstrated experience designing advanced metal additive manufacturing hardware for regulated or high-reliability environments. The ideal candidate brings strong expertise in Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), supported by proficiency in analytical tools such as finite element analysis (FEA), computational fluid dynamics (CFD), thermal analysis, and topology optimization. This role requires hands-on experience with advanced additive design software platforms (e.g., nTopology, Oqton 3DXpert, Hyperganic, LEAP 71, or similar tools) and the ability to translate complex or evolving requirements into manufacturable, performance-validated designs. The successful candidate communicates technical trade-offs clearly, collaborates effectively with customers and cross-functional manufacturing teams, and delivers innovative, production-ready hardware solutions aligned with quality, cost, and performance objectives. What You’ll Do: - Lead end-to-end design of customer hardware from requirements definition and concept development through production-ready release, ensuring manufacturability, performance validation, and inspection readiness. - Facilitate structured customer workshops to define technical requirements, propose additive manufacturing (AM)-optimized architectures, and drive alignment on feasible, build-ready solutions. - Apply advanced Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) principles, including build orientation, support strategies, distortion risk mitigation, post-processing integration, and critical-to-quality feature definition. - Perform and review multiphysics analyses (e.g., FEA, CFD, thermal, coupled simulations), topology optimization, and advanced geometry development to validate performance against defined requirements. - Partner cross-functionally with Applications Engineering, Materials & Process Engineering, Systems Engineering, Quality, and Operations to ensure scalable, repeatable production and support root cause and corrective action activities as needed. What We’re Looking For: - Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, aerospace, or a related engineering field (or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience). - Demonstrated experience designing metal additive manufacturing hardware in regulated or high-reliability industries (e.g., aerospace, defense, energy, medical, or similar). - Advanced knowledge of Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), including architecture selection, build strategy, post-processing considerations, and production release practices. - Experience conducting and interpreting multiphysics simulations (e.g., FEA, CFD, thermal analysis) to validate structural, thermal, and fluid performance. - Proficiency with advanced additive design and modeling tools (e.g., nTopology, Oqton 3DXpert, Hyperganic, LEAP 71, or comparable platforms), as well as CAD, GD&T, and drawing release standards. What Will Set You Apart: - Experience developing ... (truncated, view full listing at source)