Job Description

Sr. Director, Operational Excellence

The Sr. Director, Operational Excellence will serve as a key resource to senior program, engineering, and operations leaders, as well as our cross-functional business partners. This role will lead enterprise-wide operational performance initiatives, drive adoption of our integrated process framework, and guide teams toward excellence in both program execution and product delivery. This role is equal parts architect, coach, and catalyst ensuring we meet our commitments today while building the operational foundation for tomorrow's innovations.

Position Responsibilities:

• Champion Operational Excellence: Lead the design, implementation, and governance of an enterprise operational excellence strategy that enhances executional discipline, fosters continuous improvement, and scales with growth in pursuit of delivering on our customer's needs.
• Enable Product & Process Alignment: Partner with Program/Product Management, Engineering, and Operations teams to embed the company's product & process framework, ensuring strong linkage between concept, design, development, execution, and operational delivery. Ensure alignment with critical business functional support teams. Own our integrated process framework and lead adoption enterprise wide.
• Drive Strategic Transformation: In coordination with key stakeholders, lead cross-functional initiatives that enhance agility, reduce cycle time, improve quality, and optimize throughput from concept to deployment. Identify key delivery performance issues and partner with organizational stakeholders to ferret out bottlenecks, handoff inefficiency, tooling shortcomings, orphaned responsibilities, and misaligned metrics.
• Build an Enterprise Capability: Establish and manage a scalable Operational Excellence program, including maturity assessments, training, certifications (e.g., Lean Six Sigma), knowledge-sharing communities, and lessons learned. Align process maturity and execution quality with phase-gated development models, from early product definition through transition to production and sustainment.
• Coach & Influence: Mentor leaders and teams across the enterprise to adopt data-driven, customer-aligned thinking; proactively manage risks and tradeoffs between short-term/long-term decision making; and change management best practices across complex efforts.
• Audit for Accountability: Lead internal program and product audits to assess compliance with defined operational processes, phase-gate reviews, and framework standards; identify systemic gaps and partner with stakeholders to drive corrective actions and continuous improvement. Lead operation focused ad-hoc milestones such as Execution Readiness Reviews, or External Solution Reviews.
• Other duties as assigned

Basic Qualifications (Required Skills & Experience):

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Operations, Business, or related field, or equivalent combination of education, training, and experience
• Minimum 15+ years of experience in defense, aerospace, or regulated industries with deep exposure to program and product execution, operational improvement, or transformation leadership
• Minimum 7-10 + years of experience leading people
• Proven success leading enterprise-scale operational excellence or business transformation efforts
• Experience working with or integrating product management functions, especially in systems-engineered, regulated product development environments
• Strong knowledge of phase-gated product development models, process architectures, and integrated lifecycle management
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and leadership skills with the ability to influence at all levels of the organization
• Experience establishing or scaling a Center of Excellence or Operational Excellence function
• Understanding of compliance-driven environments, including EVMS, DCMA audits, and public company operational oversight

Other Qualifications & Desired Competencies:

• Advanced degree preferred
• Uses vision to think beyond the immediate situation, explore multiple potential paths, and adapt decision-making style based on the situational circumstances
• Inspires, motivates, and empowers people to deliver organizational goals, while also delivering value back to employees
• Brings organizational values to life using personality, uniqueness and the creation of a shared vision
• Champions the process of change and promotes a culture of quick adaptation while helping others deal with the effects of change
• Demonstrates the ability to develop and maintain internal and external trusting, professional relationships
• Assesses the degree of risk and opportunity in plans or actions and takes appropriate action to mitigate them or makes plans to build on the opportunity

Physical Demands:

• Ability to work in an office environment (Constant)
• Required to sit and stand for long periods; talk, hear, and use hands and fingers to operate a computer and telephone keyboard (Frequent)

Special Requirements:

U.S. Citizen, U.S. Permanent Resident (Green Card holder) or asylee/refugee status as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3) required.

The salary range for this role is: $165,580 - $234,465. AeroVironment considers several factors when extending an offer, including but not limited to, the location, the role and associated responsibilities, a candidate's work experience, education/training, and key skills.

ITAR Requirement: This position requires access to information that is subject to compliance with the International Traffic Arms Regulations ("ITAR") and/or the Export Administration Regulations ("EAR"). In order to comply with the requirements of the ITAR and/or the EAR, applicants must qualify as a U.S. person under the ITAR and the EAR, or a person to be approved for an export license by the governing agency whose technology comes under its jurisdiction. Please understand that any job offer that requires approval of an export license will be conditional on AeroVironment's determination that it will be able to obtain an export license in a time frame consistent with AeroVironment's business requirements. A "U.S. person" according to the ITAR definition is a U.S. citizen, U.S. lawful permanent resident (green card holder), or protected individual such as a refugee or asylee. See 22 CFR 120.15. Some positions will require current U.S. Citizenship due to contract requirements.

Benefits: AV offers an excellent benefits package including medical, dental vision, 401K with company matching, a 9/80 work schedule and a paid holiday shutdown. For more information about our company benefit offerings please visit:

We also encourage you to review our company website at to learn more about us.

Principals only need apply. NO agencies please.

Who We Are:

Based in California, AeroVironment (AVAV) is a global leader in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and tactical missile systems. Founded in 1971 by celebrated physicist and engineer, Dr. Paul MacCready, we've been at the leading edge of technical innovation for more than 45 years. Be a part of the team that developed the world's most widely used military drones and created the first submarine-launched reconnaissance drone, and has seven innovative vehicles that are part of the Smithsonian Institution's permanent collection in Washington, DC.

Join us today in developing the next generation of small UAS and tactical missile systems that will deliver more actionable intelligence to our customers so they can proceed with certainty and succeed.

What We Do:

Building on a history of technological innovation, AeroVironment designs, develops, produces, and supports an advanced portfolio of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and tactical missile systems. Agencies of the U.S. Department of Defense and allied military services use the company's hand-launched UAS to provide situational awareness to tactical operating units through real-time, airborne reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition.

We are proud to be an EEO/AA Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability/veterans. AeroVironment, Inc. is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer and welcomes all qualified applicants. Qualified applicants will receive fair and impartial consideration without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, genetic data, sexual orientation, gender identity or other legally protected status.

ITAR: U.S. Citizenship is required. Secret or Top Secret clearance, or the ability obtain a clearance is desired.

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