Solar Array Production Operations Manager, Project Kuiper

Project Kuiper is an initiative to increase global broadband access through a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). Its mission is to bring fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world.

Project Kuiper will help close the digital divide by delivering fast, affordable broadband to a wide range of customers, including consumers, businesses, government agencies, and other organizations operating in places without reliable connectivity.

As a Production Operations Manager within Project Kuiper, you will assist with assembly and testing of solar array components, subassemblies, mechanisms and arrays. You will report directly to the Value Stream Leader and will own the Value Streams KPI performance. Your team consists of supervisors, technicians, schedulers, and production coordinators who are directly responsible for production output. To be successful in this role you will create the foundational production system standards and processes needed to achieve rate production. Safety and product quality are paramount. As Kuiper's production system scales, your responsibilities will include stabilizing the work content while aggressively leading process improvement efforts to increase production output.

Key job responsibilities
- Champion Amazon’s Leadership Principles to drive a culture of ownership, accountability, teamwork, and working hard while having fun.
- Create a culture of safety and quality through active engagement and leadership of the technician workforce.
- Establish great working relationships with design engineering, quality, EH&S, and supply chain teams.
- Drive operational excellence with a combination of data analytics and Lean operations.
- Use knowledge and experience in understanding, collaborating, and trading complex inputs from multiple other disciplines (Electrical, RF, Thermal, Dynamics, Mechanisms, Materials, Tooling, Assembly, and Test) to guide the manufacturing team.

Export Control Requirement:
Due to applicable export control laws and regulations, candidates must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

A day in the life
The Production Operations Manager will lead production rate increases in Kuiper's new full rate production facility. They will lead the manufacturing engineering team in identifying production bottlenecks and implementing improvements. The successful candidate has extensive operations experience and a thorough understanding of aerospace/space hardware manufacturing processes. They will own the daily operating rhythm of the technician team, creating and reporting on KPI's to the Value Stream Leader. This is a fast-paced, intellectually challenging position working with leaders in multiple technology areas. You’ll have relentlessly high standards for yourself and everyone you work with, and you’ll be constantly looking for ways to improve your product’s performance, quality and cost. This is a leadership role for a highly collaborative individual that combines superb technical and analytical capabilities to optimize precision manufacturing procedures.