IT Manager, Manufacturing

Skydio is the leading US drone company and the world leader in autonomous flight, the key technology for the future of drones and aerial mobility. The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best-in-class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users, from utility inspectors to first responders , soldiers in battlefield scenarios , and beyond .

About the Role

The IT Manager, Manufacturing owns every piece of technology that keeps Skydio’s drone production lines running. You are the single IT leader for the factory: you set the manufacturing IT strategy directly with local factory leadership, then build the team, infrastructure and operating model that deliver it.

This is a build-and-take-over role. Factory IT is supported today as an extension of corporate IT; you will take ownership of it, establish it as a dedicated function, and run it to production standards, where downtime is measured in units not shipped. You will be as comfortable walking the line with a production supervisor at shift change as presenting a three-year roadmap to operations executives.

The ideal candidate has run IT inside a high-volume, high-mix hardware factory, understands where IT meets operational technology (OT), and still enjoys getting hands-on when a line is down.

Location

This is an office-based position that requires 5 days/week onsite at Skydio’s manufacturing facility in Hayward, CA, with occasional travel to Skydio HQ in San Mateo, CA. The factory runs multiple shifts; you will set up coverage and an on-call rotation for your team and be the escalation point for production-impacting incidents.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy and factory partnership

• Own the manufacturing IT strategy and multi-year roadmap, built jointly with factory leadership and aligned to production ramp, new product introduction (NPI) and capacity plans

• Act as the single accountable IT partner for the plant: sit in factory staff and production meetings, translate operational priorities into technology decisions, and report on uptime, risk and delivery

• Take over factory IT services from corporate IT with a clear transition plan, defined ownership boundaries and no disruption to production

• Build and manage the factory IT budget, vendor relationships, hardware lifecycle and spares strategy

Production systems and shop floor

• Keep the lines running: own availability targets and incident response for all IT systems that production depends on

• Run the infrastructure behind the Manufacturing Execution System (MES), test stations, flashing and calibration fixtures, label printing, scanners and line-side workstations, in partnership with Manufacturing Software, Test and Manufacturing Engineering

• Ensure reliable integration paths between MES, ERP, PLM and quality systems so that build data and traceability records are complete

• Stand up IT for new lines, cells and sites on the production schedule, including network, compute, endpoints and access, ready before first build

• Lead root cause analysis on production-impacting incidents and drive permanent fixes, not workarounds

Infrastructure, network and security

• Design and operate a segmented factory network that separates corporate IT from production and OT systems, with resilient wired and wireless coverage across the floor

• Own factory compute, storage, backup and disaster recovery, including local resilience so production continues through a WAN or cloud outage

• Manage Linux, Windows and Mac endpoints on the floor, including shared, kiosk and fixture machines, with patching scheduled around production windows

• Extend Skydio’s identity and device management standards (Okta, JumpCloud) to shift-based and shared-station environments

• Automate provisioning and configuration with Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform) and scripting (Python, Bash) so stations are rebuilt in minutes, not hours

Team and operations

• Hire, lead and develop the manufacturing IT team, including technicians and systems administrators across shifts

• Establish change management, maintenance windows, runbooks and on-call rotations suited to a multi-shift factory

• Define and publish service metrics: line-impacting downtime, mean time to restore, ticket volume and change success rate

• Document architecture, processes and procedures so the function scales with the factory rather than with individuals

What Makes You a Good Fit

• A degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering or a related technical field, or equivalent hands-on experience

• 10+ years in IT infrastructure or operations, with at least 5 years supporting a manufacturing or production environment

• 4+ years leading IT teams, including hiring, coaching and managing technicians and administrators across shifts

• A track record of building or taking over an IT function at a factory during a production ramp, new line launch or new site bring-up

• Experience partnering directly with plant managers, operations directors and manufacturing engineering leaders, and earning their trust as a peer

• Working knowledge of shop-floor systems: MES, ERP, PLM and quality system integrations, test and fixture stations, label printing and barcode scanning

• Strong network fundamentals (TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, VLANs, wireless) and experience designing segmented IT/OT networks for production

• Hands-on background across Linux, Windows and Mac, with Linux depth for production and test stations

• Experience with identity and device management at scale (Okta, JumpCloud or equivalent), including shared and kiosk workstations

• An automation-first approach: scripting in Python or Bash and Infrastructure-as-Code with Terraform or similar

• Experience running incident response, root cause analysis and change management where downtime has a direct production cost

• Experience managing budgets, vendors and hardware lifecycle for a site

• Excellent communication skills, equally effective with line operators, engineers and executives

• Willingness to be onsite five days a week and available for escalations outside standard hours

Nice to Have

• Experience in consumer electronics, robotics, aerospace, automotive or electric vehicle manufacturing

• Experience in an export-controlled or defense-adjacent environment (ITAR/EAR, NIST SP 800-171, CMMC)

• Familiarity with industrial protocols and controls (PLCs, SCADA, OPC UA, Ignition, Kepware)

• Experience standing up IT for a second factory or a contract manufacturer site

• ITIL or equivalent service management background; industry certifications such as CCNA, Linux+, PMP or CISSP

• Obtaining FAA Part 107 certification within the first 60 days of employment is strongly encouraged for all Skydio employees and required for certain positions