Senior Director Operations // Manufacturing Scale-Up // Hamburg

Einleitung

THE CONTEXT
A technology company at the intersection of advanced manufacturing and consumer products is redefining how physical goods are made and delivered. Their production model, fully digitized, highly customized, zero tooling, is gaining rapid commercial traction. The Hamburg facility is the operational heart of global fulfillment, and it's scaling fast.

The company is moving from early-stage production to industrial-grade throughput. The systems, teams, and processes required to make that leap don't exist yet. That's the mandate.

THE ROLE
You will own end-to-end operations, from the production floor to the customer's door. This means designing the machine, not just running it. You define KPIs that don't yet exist, build teams from scratch, and align production reality with an aggressive product innovation roadmap.

Deine Aufgaben

This is not a maintenance role. It's a construction role. You will be accountable for:

• Production throughput and uptime, setting targets, closing gaps, owning the numbers
• Yield and quality systems, building processes that scale without losing precision
• Logistics and delivery performance, ensuring promises to customers are kept, consistently
• Team architecture, hiring, structuring, and developing operational talent for 100+ headcount
• Lean systems and automation, implementing MES/ERP and intelligent workflows without bureaucratic overhead
• Cross-functional alignment, serving as the operational counterpart to Product and Engineering
• Compliance and cost efficiency, running a tight, safe, financially disciplined operation

WHAT YOU BRING
You've built something. Not just optimized someone else's blueprint. You have at least one verifiable example of scaling a manufacturing or logistics operation, from early-stage to industrial capacity and you can speak precisely about the decisions that made the difference.

Dein Profil

• Proven track record setting up and scaling manufacturing or fulfillment operations in high-complexity, fast-moving environments
• Deep fluency in production metrics: yield, uptime, throughput, OEE, you set these targets, you move them
• Experience introducing lean practices into growing teams without creating bureaucracy that kills speed
• Familiarity with modern manufacturing systems (MES, ERP) and the judgment to deploy them at the right moment
• Leadership credibility on the shopfloor and in the executive suite, you build trust with frontline teams and communicate effectively with founders
• Comfort operating in multinational, cross-cultural environments, you've led diverse teams and adapted your style accordingly
• Fluent in English; German is a genuine plus, not required

WHO THIS IS NOT FOR
If you've spent your career optimizing mature systems inside large corporates, this will be a mismatch. If you need organizational infrastructure to function, this will frustrate you. If you prefer clarity over ambiguity, wait for the next role.

This is for someone who sees an unbuilt system as an opportunity, not a risk.

Benefits

The honest version: this is a hard job. The operations you build here will shape how a new category of product reaches millions of people. You'll have direct access to founders, real P&L responsibility, and the rare experience of building an industrial function for a technology that has no established playbook.

The practical version: competitive compensation, flat hierarchy, a highly capable team across engineering and design, and a company that is growing, not hoping to grow.