Manufacturing Project Engineer

AERODYN ENGINEERING

Manufacturing Project Manager

Indianapolis, IN |Full-Time

About the Role

Aerodyn Engineering is looking for a Manufacturing Project Manager to lead complex, first-run aerospace and defense hardware projects from quote through delivery. Most of what we build here isn't repeat work — it's development hardware being made for the first (and often only) time, for large OEM aerospace customers with exacting quality and airworthiness standards. This role owns the technical, schedule, and communication threads that keep those projects on track.

You'll be the connective tissue between engineering, the shop floor, purchasing/vendors, and the customer — translating technical requirements into manufacturable plans, keeping everyone informed, and catching problems before they become delays.

Benefits:

• Quarterly Bonus Incentive Plans
• Company Paid Contributions to Health Insurance Premiums
• Over 60% of Employees pay zero for healthcare premiums
• Company paid Life and AD&D insurance
• Company paid Short Term Disability
• 401k with up to 4% Company Match
• Voluntary insurance such as dental, vision, and life/disability
• Paid Time Off

What You'll Do

• Build and manage detailed work instructions for one-time, first-article development hardware builds — there's no prior run to lean on, so getting the plan right matters.
• Serve as the customer's primary point of contact: providing schedules, status updates, and proactive communication throughout the life of each project.
• Own the technical details of your projects — reading specs and drawings, and translating customer requirements into a manufacturable, compliant plan the shop floor can execute.
• Provide internal reporting on project status, schedule changes, and cost impacts to leadership on a regular cadence.
• Coordinate with purchasing, materials, and outside vendors to keep procurement and subcontract work on schedule.
• Support large OEM aerospace customers with strict quality and flight-worthiness requirements, where documentation and precision are non-negotiable.
• Manage a portfolio of 10–12 active projects at once, keeping every detail on track across all of them.

What Makes You a Fit

• You're comfortable with ambiguity and complexity — a lot of what you'll manage here has never been built before.
• You're proactive by nature: you flag the question or the risk before it becomes a problem, and you follow up without being asked.
• You have the technical range to read a drawing or spec and communicate it clearly to both a machinist and a customer.
• You can hold 10+ projects in your head at once without letting the details on any one of them slip.
• Prior experience with an ERP system (Epicor or similar) is a plus, but not required.

What You'll Have

• A skilled, experienced team of machinists and shop floor support who take real pride in their work.
• A tight-knit internal support structure — quality, purchasing, and engineering are down the hall, not a ticket queue away.
• Ownership over real, high-stakes aerospace hardware projects from day one.

Requirements

• High school diploma required; Bachelor's degree preferred.
• 5+ years of engineering/manufacturing project experience, ideally in aerospace or another regulated, precision-manufacturing environment.
• Strong mechanical aptitude and the ability to develop creative solutions to open-ended problems.
• Excellent written, verbal, and technical communication skills.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and self-directed — comfortable managing a demanding, multi-project workload independently.