Manager, Onboarding and New Hire Experience

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.

Valued at $1.6B, 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

At Hadrian, we are building the teams and systems that power the future of aerospace and defense manufacturing. As we scale rapidly across engineering, manufacturing, and business functions, an exceptional onboarding journey is essential to our success. The onboarding experience is the first signal of how we work, how we care for our people, and how fast we expect them to ramp. We need a strategic builder who can design and lead an onboarding ecosystem that sets every new hire up for long term success.

We are hiring a Manager, Onboarding and New Hire Experience to lead the strategy, design, and delivery of a high quality onboarding journey that extends far beyond Day 1. This role will own the full onboarding lifecycle, from pre boarding through the first 90 days, and will create specialized tracks that immerse new employees into their functional homes. This includes partnering with leaders in Engineering, Manufacturing, Sales, Business Operations, and People to ensure that every new hire receives the tools, context, and support they need to ramp quickly and confidently.

This is a high impact role for a strong program owner who is energized by building from zero to one, collaborating across the company, and improving how we welcome and empower talent at scale. While this role is a team of one to start, it requires someone who can think at the systems level, operate with independence, and deliver both strategy and execution in a fast paced, high growth environment.

What You’ll Do

• Own the full onboarding journey for all new hires, from pre boarding through first 90 days.
• Design and lead scalable onboarding programs that support rapid growth across all teams.
• Build role based and function specific onboarding tracks in partnership with Engineering, Manufacturing, Sales, and Business leaders.
• Facilitate New Hire Orientation, coordinate leader involvement, and ensure a strong Day 1 and first week experience.
• Create clear onboarding documentation, guides, templates, notifications, and manager playbooks.
• Partner with Recruiting, People Operations, IT, Facilities, Finance, and People Partners to ensure frictionless new hire readiness.
• Track and analyze onboarding effectiveness by measuring feedback, ramp milestones, and time to productivity.
• Use insights to adjust and improve programs, tools, and processes over time.
• Support onboarding readiness for new facilities, new functions, and new operational models as the company expands.
• Coach hiring managers on best practices for integrating and ramping new hires.
• Identify gaps in onboarding workflows and lead cross functional solutions that improve speed and quality.

What We’re Looking For

• At least 5 years of experience in onboarding, people programs, learning and development, or HR operations with significant ownership of new hire experiences or program design.
• Proven ability to design and run multi month onboarding programs across varied functions.
• Experience building programs in a high growth, fast changing environment where clarity does not always exist and iteration is constant.
• Strong facilitation, presentation, and communication skills with the ability to engage diverse audiences across levels and job families.
• Ability to influence leaders and work cross functionally to create alignment, solve problems, and drive adoption of new processes.
• High level of systems thinking with the ability to connect dots between teams and identify operational gaps.
• Strong judgment and decision making skills with the ability to operate independently and prioritize effectively.
• A detail oriented builder who enjoys both designing strategy and executing the work.
• Comfort with HR systems, onboarding tools, and workflow automation.
• A warm, professional presence that helps new hires feel supported and welcomed.

What Will Set You Apart

• Experience scaling onboarding programs during periods of rapid headcount growth.
• Background supporting onboarding in both technical and non technical environments.
• Experience designing or delivering learning pathways, training curricula, or ramp plans.
• Ability to build onboarding analytics dashboards or track program performance with precision.
• History of leading highly cross functional initiatives with strong adoption.
• A passion for creating meaningful, human centered experiences that accelerate performance.

Compensation

For this role, the target salary range is $123,000 – $167,000 (actual range may vary based on experience and performance).

This is the lowest to highest salary we reasonably and in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range, and the range may be modified in the future. An employee’s pay position within the salary range will be based on several factors, including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans for employees
• 401k
• Relocation support may be provided for certain situations, based on business need.
• Flexible vacation policy

ITAR Requirements

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.

Hadrian Is An Equal Opportunity Employer

It is the Company’s policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees. The Company does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race inclusive of traits historically associated with race (including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles, such as braids, locks and twists), color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, national origin (including, in California, possession of a drivers license), ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, height or weight, medical condition, family care status, military or veteran status, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, exercise of reproductive rights, any other basis protected by local, state, or federal laws, or any combination of the above characteristics. When necessary, the Company also makes reasonable accommodations for disabled candidates and employees, including for candidates or employees who are disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.