Entrylevel Forward Deployed Engineer Jobs in Santa Ana, CA

Hadrian - Manufacturing the Future
Hadrian is building autonomous factories to reindustrialize America. By combining AI, advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing, we help aerospace and defense companies build rockets, satellites, aircraft, ships, and other mission-critical systems up to 10x faster and at significantly lower cost.
Following our $1.37B Series D at a $7.87B valuation, Hadrian is rapidly expanding our manufacturing footprint, launching new capabilities across welding, casting, forging, electronics, additive manufacturing, and more, while scaling our Factory-as-a-Service platform to transform how critical products are built.
Backed by leading investors including JPMorgan Chase, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Lux Capital, T. Rowe Price, and Morgan Stanley, we're building the future of American manufacturing-and looking for exceptional people to help make it happen.
If you're ready to take on the most challenging and rewarding work of your career while helping create American manufacturing jobs for generations to come, you're exactly who we're looking for.
The Role
Forward Deployed Engineers embed on enterprise customer programs and do whatever it takes to make them succeed.
Sometimes that means providing connective tissue: configuring and integrating Opus, Hadrian's software and robotics platform, for the specific needs of a program. Just as often it means building new products at the edge, including ones the customer didn't know to ask for. You'll drive the full loop from discovery to deployment, with no layers between you and the customer.
The best of what you build won't stay bespoke. The products you create at the edge often become part of Opus, which makes this one of the sharpest sources of new product discovery at Hadrian.
This is not a customer success or deployment-support role - you'll spend most of your time building. The team is early and the people who join now will define what it becomes.
What You'll Do

• Work a program end to end - from the first ambiguous conversation through discovery, build, deployment, and iteration. You stay on it from the messy start to running in production.

• Communicate across the full stakeholder range - customer leadership, program managers, and the operators and engineers on both their team and Hadrian's - translating technical constraints into decisions non-technical stakeholders can act on.

• Partner with the teams building Opus to go deep where a program needs it - architecting the integrations, data models, and configuration that let the platform run against a customer's real systems and production reality.

• Build net-new software to make programs succeed - standalone applications, custom workflows, and integrations that solve problems Opus doesn't yet cover. Some stays bespoke to one program; some becomes part of the platform.

• Ship fast and iterate. Get something working into users' hands early rather than perfecting in isolation.

• Turn field learnings into platform direction. Feed concrete requirements back to the Opus teams and help decide when a one-off solution should graduate into the platform.

What We're Looking For

• Strong builder with high ownership - comfortable going 0 to 1 and shipping in ambiguous environments where no one hands you the spec.

• AI-native, and relentless about it. We're looking for ridiculously high-pace, high-agency engineers who use AI to compress everything - discovery, prototyping, execution. You can show us concretely how AI already makes you multiples faster, and you're hungry to push it further.

• Comfortable across the whole stack - everything from UI/UX work to designing backend systems, reaching for whatever technology best fits the problem rather than defaulting to what you know.

• Strong product instincts. You think about what to build, not just how to build it.

• Experience working directly with customers or end users, translating ambiguous needs into concrete, shipped solutions.

• Communication range. You can engage operators and program managers on the factory floor and senior program stakeholders in the same week, and translate complex technical constraints into terms that drive non-technical decisions.

• Driven by the mission and the tempo. You get energized by the impact you're having on the programs you work on, and you care deeply about delivering at the pace our customers need.

What Will Set You Apart

• Founder or founding-engineer experience - you've taken a new product zero to one.

• Prior forward-deployed, solutions engineering, or technical consulting experience - you've built directly against messy customer reality before.

• Domain background in aerospace, defense, or manufacturing - or anywhere hardware and software have to meet.

• A visible body of work - a strong GitHub presence or a portfolio of projects you've shipped outside of work.

Logistics
This role is based out of our Los Angeles (Torrance) or San Francisco Bay Area office. You'll periodically travel to spend time on-site with customers and operators - enough to understand their reality firsthand - but this is not a travel-heavy or long-deployment role.
Compensation
For this role, the target salary range is $120,000 - $250,000(actual range may vary based on experience).
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 for Full-time Employees

• 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
• Equity

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.
Use of AI in hiring
Hadrian uses AI-assisted tools in our recruiting and hiring processes to help our team work more efficiently. This may include tools that help organize and analyze recruiting data, as well as an AI-powered notetaker that can record and transcribe interviews and help coordinate feedback. These tools support our team and are not used to make hiring decisions. All candidate evaluations and hiring decisions are performed by humans. If an interview will be recorded, you will be notified in advance and may opt out at any time with no impact on your candidacy. Candidate data processed through these tools is subject to the same protections described in our Privacy Policy.
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.