Production Master Scheduler

Astranis builds advanced satellites for high orbits, expanding humanity’s reach into the solar system. Today, Astranis satellites provide dedicated, secure networks to highly-sophisticated customers across the globe— large enterprises, sovereign governments, and the US military. With five satellites on orbit and many more set to launch soon, the company is servicing a backlog of more than $1 billion of commercial contracts.

Astranis is the preferred satellite communications partner for buyers with stringent requirements for uptime, data security, network visibility, and customization. Astranis has raised over $750 million from some of the world’s best investors, from Andreessen Horowitz to Blackrock and Fidelity, and employs a team of 450 engineers and entrepreneurs. Astranis designs, builds, and operates its satellites out of its 153,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Northern California, USA.

Production Master Scheduler

A Production Master Scheduler is the creator and owner of the Astranis production schedule across all programs, and the leader of the Production Control function. You will be responsible for developing and maintaining plans that push the limits of what is possible but are still achievable, gaining buy-in from key stakeholders, and working with company leadership and production resources to execute them.

The ideal candidate must be able to filter a complex schedule of thousands of lines into simple targets that people can understand, navigate under-constrained problems with large data sets and converge on a path forward, stay aware of the status of many things and spot problems before they occur, and possess excellent verbal and written communication skills. If you are the ultimate organizer, can juggle 10 things at once with ease, walk into a room with many different opinions and out of that room with one clear shared goal, and have a passion for ruthless execution and improvement - this might be the role for you!

Role 

• Develop and maintain detailed resource-loaded schedules for multiple simultaneous satellite production and launch programs, including flight hardware, R&D hardware, tooling, and test equipment.
• Work closely with the production leadership team to develop and execute realistic but aggressive plans, and with the engineering program management team to integrate these schedules into end-to-end programmatic schedules.
• Derive and communicate clear targets and priorities for every piece of hardware to the relevant production workcenters, and work with production managers to ensure appropriate allocation of resources, schedule accuracy and on-time delivery.
• Steer a team of production coordinators in an indirect reporting/matrix org structure to ensure correct prioritization on a daily basis and ensure on-time material movement through the factory.
• Identify and report on the critical path schedule issues, and work with company leadership and internal partners to drive actions and decisions to enable continued progress.
• Perform quick “what if” schedule modeling and analyses on multiple possible outcomes to help make decisions on emergent risks.
• Create, maintain, and use scheduling processes and tools to identify, analyze, and act on potential constraints on a daily/weekly basis.
• Work with software and procurement teams to implement and maintain a Material Requirements Planning (MRP) system, ensuring data accuracy.
• Constantly communicate schedule status and changes to key stakeholders across the business, in written reports, meetings/presentations, and in automated fashion using dashboards and other tools.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in an engineering or similar technical discipline, or 5+ years of professional work in the aerospace industry.
• 2+ years of professional experience as an integrated master scheduler of medium- to large-sized (>2000 lines) projects, including creating resource-loaded schedules.

Bonus

• Experience with Smartsheet or MS Project scheduling software.
• Proficiency in SQL query writing, and ability to create custom dashboards in Grafana/Tableau/PowerBI/etc.
• Experienced in planning and scheduling using ERP/MRP software systems.
• Understanding of the aerospace engineering lifecycle.
• Understanding of spacecraft assembly, integration, and test methods.