Director, Manufacturing Industrialization & Scaling

About this role

Company Overview

Kairos Power is a new nuclear energy technology and engineering company whose mission is to enable the world’s transition to clean energy, with the ultimate goal to dramatically improve people’s quality of life while protecting the environment. This goal will be accomplished through the commercialization of the fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor (FHR) that can be deployed with robust safety, affordable costs, and flexible operation to accommodate the expansion of variable renewables.

Job Summary

The Director, Manufacturing Industrialization & Scaling leads the evolution of FHR manufacturing from today’s process development, and integrated demonstrations to full production readiness, ensuring scalability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. This role coordinates the development of the long-term manufacturing roadmap including detailed make vs. buy/partner strategy, facility footprint and resource growth strategy, and capability scaling. Reporting to the Vice President of Manufacturing, and working closely with Engineering, Supply Chain & Procurement, Finance, and Operations, this role is accountable for developing robust manufacturing strategies, cost models, scalable production processes, and systems that enable predictable growth while strengthening manufacturing quality, safety, and delivery performance. This role leads a team that defines manufacturing industrialization strategies, manufacturing readiness, manufacturing engineering, manufacturing architecture, and cross-functional integration.

Responsibilities

• Owns the manufacturing industrialization strategy, driving the transition from R&D to scalable, reliable, and cost-effective manufacturing across facilities and product lines in collaboration with other manufacturing, engineering, and cross-functional leaders. Leads development and execution of the long-range manufacturing roadmap, and staged manufacturing scaling plan, consolidating stakeholder inputs to define manufacturing readiness, required capabilities, site and facility selection, workforce model, capital roadmap, technologies, and investments to support throughput growth, quality improvement, and risk reduction.

• Owns annual and multi-year CapEx/OpEx planning for manufacturing, prioritizing investments aligned to key operational drivers including capacity, quality, cost, and risk mitigation. Develop and mature cost-tracking processes, cost models, and lifecycle production economics (prototype through optimized production) to improve cost visibility, forecasting, pricing strategy, and executive decision-making, and to drive cost-engineer feedback into design engineering teams, in collaboration with manufacturing, supply-chain, finance, and human resources leadership.

• Partners cross-functionally with engineering, operations, supply chain & procurement, finance, and quality innovation to define manufacturability requirements, integrate operating experience into manufacturing processes, and mature products and processes through each lifecycle phase. Improves schedule confidence by working with manufacturing integration and operations, planning, and shop leadership to understand bottlenecks in early production to inform engineering feedback and DFM processes that improve part manufacturability before higher-volume commitments.

• Collaborates with manufacturing leaders to establish advanced machining, fabrication, metrology, and material-prep, and test-cell capabilities early. Pilots critical processes and production technologies to mature process control, automation integration, cost structure and equipment utilization ahead of high-rate production, reducing risk to future facility investments.

• Foster a culture of operational excellence where safety, quality, and continuous improvement are foundational to scaling success. Provides leadership and direction to manufacturing staff responsible for developing and executing manufacturing growth plans, establishes performance expectations, coaches and mentors team members, and builds technical depth, adaptability, and engagement over time.

• Aligns internal and external capability decisions using Make-vs-Partner framework and validated cost, quality, and schedule performance data, enabling data-driven vertical-integration and supply chain strategy tied to long-term production and scaling goals.

• Drives accountability across manufacturing teams by supporting execution plans and resource strategies and leading regular reviews of performance metrics. Builds scaling maturity tracking and KPIs that bridge development-phase uncertainty with production-phase predictability and provide clear visibility into readiness, risk, and performance for executive leadership.

• Build and maintain cost models for Make-vs-Partner, CapEx investment, cost-engineering, and lifecycle production economics (prototype to optimized production) to guide executive decision-making.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, technical management, or related field OR equivalent combination of education, technical certifications, and relevant experience.

• 12+ years of relevant experience in manufacturing, engineering operations, or R&D infrastructure, including 5+ years in a leadership/people management role.

• Demonstrated success leading multi-disciplinary technical teams in a complex, high-consequence environment.

• Experience with R&D laboratories, pilot plants, or advanced manufacturing strongly preferred.

• Proven ability to develop talent, build cohesive teams, and lead through change.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Deep knowledge of manufacturing engineering, industrialization practices, and process development including process characterization, qualification, validation, and readiness for scale.

• Strong understanding of production system design encompassing throughput analysis, capacity modeling, factory layout, workflow optimization, and technology selection.

• Demonstrated experience l

Similar jobs

• Director, Manufacturing — PCI Pharma Services · Bedford, NH
• Director, Manufacturing Engineering — Andurilindustries · Costa Mesa, California, United States
• Director, Manufacturing Engineering — Andurilindustries · Ashville, Ohio, United States
• Director, Supplier Industrialization Engineering — Relativity · Long Beach, California
• Director, Manufacturing Excellence — Kenvue · North America, United States, Pennsylvania, Fort Washington
• Director of Manufacturing — Andersen · Dubuque, IA
• Director of Manufacturing — Astro Mechanica · San Francisco
• Director, Manufacturing Automation — Merck · Elkton, Virginia, United States