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Veteran Firm Seeking an Operations and Program Manager for an Onsite Assignment in San Jose, CA

My name is Stephen Hrutka. I lead a Veteran-Owned management consulting firm in Washington, DC. We specialize in Technical and Cleared Recruiting for the Department of Defense (DoD), the Intelligence Community (IC), and other advanced defense agencies.

At HRUCKUS, we support fellow Veteran-Owned businesses by helping them recruit for positions across organizations such as the VA, SBA, HHS, DARPA, and other leading-edge R&D-focused defense agencies.

We seek to fill an Operations and Program Manager role in San Jose, CA.

The ideal candidate is a San Jose resident with 8+ years of experience in manufacturing operations, production management, and program execution, along with familiarity in aerospace, defense, or photonics industries.

If you’re interested, I'll gladly provide more details about the role and further discuss your qualifications.

Thanks,

Stephen M Hrutka

Principal Consultant

www.hruckus.com

Executive Summary: HRUCKUS is looking for an experienced Operations and Program Manager to own the day-to-day operating execution of a small, technically focused manufacturing company, successfully connecting production schedules, R&D demands, supply chain, labor, program budgets, and contractual milestones into a clear and executable operating plan.

Position Description: This is a hands-on operating leadership role focused on driving execution, not merely supervising employees or reviewing status reports. You will initially lead a team of approximately ten employees and work closely with the CTO and Quality Manager. You will be responsible for building and maintaining the tools, schedules, analyses, and operating rhythms necessary to monitor the business, establish priorities for shared wafer fabrication resources, and keep both production and R&D activities on track.

Position Responsibilities:

• Own day-to-day execution of manufacturing operations and lead an initial team of approximately 10 employees.
• Establish clear priorities and accountability across production activities.
• Work directly with employees, engineers, and the Quality Manager to resolve production bottlenecks and keep work moving.
• Build and improve practical operating processes appropriate for a small manufacturing company without adding unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Balance near-term execution with improvements in throughput, predictability, and scalability.
• Maintain visibility into key direct and indirect materials, including inventory, open orders, consumption, lead times, and shortages.
• Personally build, own, and maintain a visible integrated schedule covering all active production and R&D programs.
• Translate contractual milestones, customer demand, engineering needs, labor availability, material availability, and equipment capacity into executable operating priorities.
• Understand the details behind the schedule and identify conflicts, constraints, and risks before they affect customer commitments.
• Lead regular operating reviews and drive decisions and follow-through when priorities or resources conflict.
• Coordinate closely with the CTO to incorporate R&D demands into shared manufacturing resources, particularly wafer fabrication.
• Provide leadership with a clear view of what is on track, what is at risk, and what decisions are required.
• Track contractual milestones and ensure required customer invoices are prepared and submitted accurately and on time.
• Own labor-hour tracking by program and ensure employees appropriately capture program labor.
• Regularly compare actual labor and material spending against Statements of Work, contracts, budgets, and internal estimates.
• Identify significant budget variances, remaining program exposure, and expected cost-to-complete issues.
• Maintain visibility into program performance and provide concise, actionable reporting to leadership.
• Ensure operational decisions reflect both schedule commitments and program economics.

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of relevant experience in manufacturing operations, production management, program management, supply chain, or a related field, including meaningful leadership responsibility.
• Demonstrated success operating in a small or mid-sized manufacturing environment (under $200M revenue; 50 to 100 employees) where leaders are expected to work directly in the details.
• Experience managing multiple simultaneous production and development programs competing for shared resources.
• Strong working knowledge of production scheduling, purchasing, inventory and material planning, and supplier management.
• Experience tracking labor and material costs against project or contract budgets.
• Strong analytical skills and advanced proficiency with Excel or similar tools.
• Ability to build effective scheduling, material-control, and operating systems without relying on a sophisticated ERP environment.
• Strong technical aptitude and the ability to understand manufacturing processes, product flow, dependencies, and constraints.
• Demonstrated ability to influence experienced technical colleagues, resolve competing priorities, make decisions, and hold teams accountable.
• Team player mentality with a willingness to learn.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience in aerospace, defense, photonics, semiconductor, electronics, precision instrumentation, or another technically complex manufacturing environment.
• Experience in an environment combining R&D, new-product introduction, and recurring production.
• Familiarity with government contracts, Statements of Work, cost tracking, and milestone-based invoicing.
• Experience with cleanroom, wafer-fabrication, optical, semiconductor, or similar specialized manufacturing processes.
• PMP, APICS or ASCM, Lean, Six Sigma, or similar training is helpful but not required.

Details:

Job Title: Operations and Program Manager

Location: San Jose, CA (Onsite)

Salary Range: $170,000 to $180,000 annually