People Strategy & Planning Manager

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:

The People Operations team builds the infrastructure that lets Hadrian scale. We are hiring a People Strategy & Planning Manager to own how Hadrian decides who we hire, when, and why. Headcount is the single biggest input into our growth, and getting it right means running a real program: a planning cycle the business trusts, a clear line from program demand to approved roles, and one number that Finance, Recruiting, and the business all agree on.

This is a program management job at its core, and the hard part is not the spreadsheet. It is holding a cross-functional cycle together across People, Recruiting, Finance, Engineering and Program leadership, each with their own pressures and their own view of what the plan should say. You will get people aligned, keep the plan honest as it changes, and land the change management so the process actually gets adopted instead of worked around.

You know how to structure an ambiguous problem, run a cycle to a deadline, and build the artifact that moves a decision forward. You live with the outcome, and you have to bring people with you.

What You’ll Do

• Own the headcount planning program end to end. Run our planning cycles from both directions, bottoms-up from the business and tops-down from leadership, then consolidate into one plan that holds up to scrutiny.

• Partner with our engineering and program leadership to turn program demand signal into role-level headcount needs, so the plan reflects what we actually have to build rather than a generic growth curve.

• Work side by side with Finance to cost the plan, reconcile it against budget, and produce a single forecasted headcount picture that everyone works from.

• Hand that plan cleanly to Recruiting Operations so approved roles land in our systems as requisitions recruiters can act on, with the data structured well enough to report on.

• Program manage the recurring monthly cadence with our embedded People Partners and Recruiting Leads, including how program and assignment tagging gets reconciled and loaded, so we can see our workforce by program and not just by department.

• Partner with Workplace Services as our footprint expands, so hiring plans and physical capacity are planned together rather than discovered out of sync.

• Drive the change management. Build the cadence, the intake, the artifacts, and the communications that make this a program people rely on, and keep raising the bar on it each cycle.

• Bring structure and visibility to leadership. Know the status of the plan at any moment, flag risk early, and make the tradeoffs legible to executives making the call.

What We’re Looking For

• 7+ years of experience spanning management consulting or a similar structured problem-solving environment, plus time in-house where you owned a program and lived with the results.

• Exceptional stakeholder management. You build credibility fast with senior leaders, you can hold a line without damaging the relationship, and you understand the nuance of influencing people who do not report to you and will still be in the room next quarter.

• Strong project management fundamentals. You work from a plan, you drive to dates, you manage dependencies across functions, and nothing quietly falls through the cracks.

• Real change management experience. You have rolled out a process that changed how people work, and you have handled the resistance, the adoption gap, and the comms that go with it.

• Comfort with planning data and financial mechanics. You can build and pressure-test a workforce model, reconcile it against a budget, and explain the delta in plain language.

• Executive-grade communication. You can write the one-pager that gets a decision made and run the meeting where it happens.

• High adaptability. You are energized by shifting scope, and you bring structure to ambiguity rather than waiting for it to be handed to you.

What Will Set You Apart

• You have run a workforce or headcount planning cycle before in close partnership with Finance, and you know where these processes usually break.

• You have worked in a high-growth, operationally intense environment such as startup, manufacturing, defense, or similar, where you had to build the program while the business moved at full speed.

• You are hands-on with the systems layer, including HRIS, ATS, and headcount planning tools such as ChartHop, exceland you understand that a program is only as good as the data flowing through it.

• You have supported engineering or technical organizations and can hold your own in a conversation about what a program actually needs.

• You see People and headcount planning as a lever for business performance, not a support function that reacts to requests.

Compensation

For this role, the target salary range is 200,000 - 240,000 (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 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.