Head of Manufacturing Development

Company Overview

Foundational is building a network of AI-native, autonomous factories for modern contract manufacturing. We’re reshoring critical supply chains so companies can produce high‑quality products domestically, quickly, and at competitive cost.

Foundational exists to make reindustrialization practical. Our factories are autonomy-first, reconfigurable by design, and orchestrated by a unified, AI-native factory operating layer that connects design through production.

Transformative Opportunity

Recent breakthroughs in robotics and physical AI have shifted autonomous manufacturing from a theoretical promise to a deployable capability, triggering a global race to operationalize these systems at scale. The challenge is no longer whether autonomy works, but who can integrate AI-native robotics into real production environments.

The ability to manufacture advanced products domestically is now central to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security. Foundational is focused on deploying these capabilities at scale during a decisive decade for American industrial leadership.

Who We Are

Foundational was built by executive leadership from Google’s physical AI platform and America’s two largest contract manufacturers.

Manufacturing critical products requires trust. The Foundational team has deployed AI systems at multi-billion-dollar scale and delivered thousands of products across hundreds of manufacturing facilities.

Role Overview

We are hiring a Head of Manufacturing Development to lead the planning, underwriting, and delivery of new Foundational manufacturing facilities as we scale from pilot operations to a national factory network.

This role owns the end-to-end development of manufacturing facility capacity. You will evaluate where and how Foundational should expand, underwrite new factory investments, and lead on-the-ground execution to bring facilities online quickly. This includes site selection, financial modeling, local partnerships, permitting, construction coordination, and readiness for production launch.

This is a hands-on leadership role that blends facility development strategy, finance, and execution. You will work closely with factory operations, engineering, procurement, and finance to ensure each new facility is delivered on time, on budget, and ready to support autonomous manufacturing at scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the financial and strategic evaluation of new manufacturing sites, including capital requirements, lease and/or land acquisition, construction partnering, operating economics, and scalability from pilot to full production.

• Develop and own underwriting models for factory expansion, incorporating demand forecasts, capacity planning, cost structure, and return profiles.

• Identify and prioritize geographic locations for expansion based on labor availability, infrastructure, supply chain access, regulatory environment, incentives, and strategic relevance.

• Lead site development from concept through launch, including land acquisition or leasing, zoning and permitting, and coordination with local authorities.

• Build and manage partnerships with construction firms, developers, utilities, and local service providers to deliver greenfield and brownfield facilities efficiently.

• Coordinate cross-functionally with operations, engineering, IT, and procurement to ensure facilities are designed for autonomous production and rapid commissioning.

• Establish repeatable development playbooks to enable multi-site rollout across multiple geographies in parallel.

• Own timelines, budgets, and risk management for factory development projects, escalating and resolving issues as needed to maintain delivery velocity.

What You’ll Bring

• 10+ years of experience in manufacturing facility development, industrial real estate, capacity planning, or infrastructure delivery.

• Direct experience deciding where and how to add manufacturing facility capacity, ideally within contract manufacturing, industrial operations, or large-scale infrastructure environments.

• Proven track record delivering complex sites at speed, such as factories, fulfillment centers, or data centers across multiple regions.

• Strong financial modeling and underwriting skills, with the ability to evaluate capital-intensive projects and tradeoffs.

• Experience working with local governments, utilities, and regulatory bodies to secure permits, incentives, and approvals.

• High operational judgment and comfort operating on the ground, managing ambiguity, and solving problems in real time.

• Ability to work cross-functionally and translate strategic intent into executable plans.

Why Join Foundational

Foundational is built for people who want their work to matter. The ability to manufacture critical products domestically is central to U.S. economic strength and national security, and we are focused on turning that imperative into execution at scale.

We operate with a strong bias toward delivery. Progress is measured by what runs in production, what holds up under pressure, and what improves over time. Ownership, judgment, and follow-through define our culture.

Foundational brings together the most experienced leadership team in autonomous manufacturing — operators who have run the largest contract manufacturing platforms in the United States, alongside engineers who have built and deployed large-scale systems at Google. This combination positions us as the clear leader in this category, with both the credibility and capability to set the standard for autonomous production.

We reward exceptional outcomes exceptionally. Compensation and equity are structured to reflect responsibility, impact, and results, with meaningful upside for those who help build and scale the business. For those aligned with the mission and motivated by execution at scale, Foundational offers the opportunity to help define one of the most consequential industrial transformations of the next decade.