Experiential Marketing Manager

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 Hadrian is hiring an Experiential Marketing Manager to own every moment where someone meets Hadrian in person. This is the single owner of our events portfolio, from a twelve-person dinner in a private room to a flagship launch built around a working factory floor. This role exists because physical experience is our highest-conviction channel. The people we most want to reach, the engineers building autonomous systems and the machinists and technicians who run them, do not decide where to spend the next five years of their career because of an ad. They decide after they walk a floor, put their hands on a part, and talk to the people doing the work. Your job is to engineer that encounter and then run it at scale across multiple cities. You will inherit a portfolio that is already in motion and under-resourced, and you will own it end to end: strategy, calendar, budget, vendors, production, staffing, and the follow-through that turns a good night into a hire or a customer conversation. This is a builder role with real budget and real autonomy, not a coordinator role executing someone else’s brief. Why Now We are scaling our manufacturing footprint across multiple sites and hiring aggressively into the Bay Area and beyond, and our events calendar is about to go from occasional to continuous. Several things are already live: recruiting-driven dinners and socials, a multi-month brand and talent campaign anchored in the Bay Area, and a set of factory and site moments tied to new capability launches. The next twelve months include a flagship culminating event whose format is still being decided. You will have a direct hand in that decision rather than inheriting it. What You’ll Do Own the portfolio Own the full events and experiential calendar end to end, across owned events, recruiting events, executive hosting, site and factory moments, and our presence at third-party industry conferences. Build the portfolio strategy: decide what we show up to, what we build ourselves, what we sponsor, and what we decline, and be able to defend each call on audience and cost. Own the events budget, including vendor selection, negotiation, production spend, and reconciliation. Bring a point of view on where a dollar buys more experience. Build the flagship moments Lead production on flagship brand and launch events, including the format decision, venue and site selection, run of show, talent and speaker logistics, and executive prep. Design factory and site experiences that let people see the machines and the work. Partner closely with site leadership and operations so that hosting visitors never compromises production, safety, or export-control obligations. Sequence events against the broader campaign calendar, including out of home, content, and media moments, so that a launch reads as one connected push rather than several unrelated dates. Run the recruiting engine in person Build a repeatable cadence of recruiting-driven experiences: curated dinners and salons, technical talks and demo nights, happy hours near our sites, and targeted socials for specific engineering and skilled-trade audiences. Partner with talent brand and recruiting on invite strategy, guest curation, and the handoff that turns an attendee into a pipeline candidate. Attendance is not the metric. Conversations and hires are. Develop formats that travel, so a dinner series or demo night can run in a new city without rebuilding it from scratch each time. Operate and measure Stand up the operating infrastructure this function currently lacks: a single source-of-truth events calendar, briefing and run-of-show templates, vendor roster, budget tracker, and post-event debriefs. Define what success means per event type before the event happens, then report honestly against it, including when something did not work. Manage agencies, production partners, and contract staff. Hold them to a standard and replace them when they miss it. Partner across the company Work directly with the executive team, including the CEO, on hosting, speaking moments, and the guest experience for high‑stakes visits. Coordinate with communications on anything press‑facing, and respect the review paths that govern customer, program, and export‑controlled information. Partner with government relations and policy on conference presence and official visits as those functions come online. What We’re Looking For Experience: 8+ years in experiential marketing, brand events, or event production, including ownership of a full portfolio and budget rather than support on individual events. Built from zero: You have created an event or a series that did not exist before, including the strategy and the operating model behind it, not only executed an established annual calendar. Production depth: You have personally run complex live production. You know what goes wrong at load‑in, what a realistic build timeline looks like, and how to hold a venue or vendor to a contract. Executive fluency: You are comfortable staffing and directing senior executives in live settings, giving them clear direction, and being the calmest person in the room when something breaks. Commercial judgment: You treat budget as yours to defend. You can tell the difference between spend that creates an experience and spend that only creates a line item. Ownership and ambiguity: You bring structure to a function that does not have much yet. You are comfortable being the only person who owns this and building the process as you go. Travel: Willing to travel frequently and to work evenings and weekends around event dates. Eligibility: U.S. person status required. Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance is a plus. What Will Set You Apart Experience in hard technology, aerospace, defense, automotive, robotics, or another industry where the product is physical and the facility itself is the best asset you have. A track record running events specifically against technical recruiting goals, with evidence that they produced hires. Experience activating industrial or non‑traditional spaces, including factories, hangars, shipyards, and construction sites, and working inside real safety and access constraints. Fluency integrating live moments with a broader campaign, including out of home, social, and video capture on site. Experience in a company scaling quickly across multiple physical locations at once. Compensation For this role, the target salary range is $ 224,000 - $260,000 (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 To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, 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 . Consideration of Criminal History Hadrian will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of all applicable laws. We do not ask about criminal history on our application, and we do not consider criminal history before making a conditional offer of employment. Hadrian Is An Equal Opportunity Employer Hadrian does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, marital status, mental status, physical disability or any other legally protected status. 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. #J-18808-Ljbffr