The Technical Training Manager plays a vital role in equipping Starship employees with the skills and knowledge necessary to meet aggressive build, test, and flight targets.
This position oversees a multidisciplinary team of training engineers, specialists, and trainers to deliver onboarding, new capability development, and performance-based training solutions.
Bridging workforce readiness with operational excellence, this leader embeds training systems directly into production and leverages data-driven prioritization of training informed by root-cause insights.
Responsibilities:
* Develop and continuously improve onboarding and job qualification programs to ensure inspectors, technicians, and welders are productive, compliant, and competent.
* Drive risk-based prioritization of training initiatives linked to safety, quality, and throughput drivers.
* Collaborate with engineering, production, and quality SMEs to develop and maintain training content.
* Establish and execute remedial training programs tied to workmanship trends, audit findings, and defect root cause data.
* Deploy a mix of instructor-led, on-the-job, and virtual learning programs using internal tools and LMS platforms.
Operational Integration:
* Serve as the operational owner of workforce readiness metrics tied to daily, weekly, and campaign-level production milestones.
* Align training resources, curricula, and cycles to the shifting demands of high-rate production, test, and flight operations.
* Partner with operations engineers, production leaders, and HR to integrate training planning into hiring, crew structures, takt planning, and rework reduction strategies.
Leadership & Strategic Planning:
* Build, coach, and lead a team of technical trainers, instructional designers, training specialists, and training engineers to drive talent development, performance feedback, and leadership growth within the team.
* Define long-range workforce development strategies that align with production ramp goals and capability evolution.
* Develop executive-level dashboards and KPIs linking training effectiveness to safety, quality, and performance indicators.
* Own the organizational knowledge base for technician best practices and process-specific know-how.
Analytics & Decision Support:
* Apply operational and statistical analysis to training outcomes using production and quality data, identifying predictive indicators of training needs.
* Develop models to prioritize training interventions based on throughput impact, cost of nonconformance, and technician development velocity.
* Build and manage dashboards using tools like Tableau and SQL to enable proactive, data-driven training actions.
Outreach & Educational Partnerships:
* Partner with local community colleges, trade schools, and universities to build strong relationships and support the development of pipeline programs.
* Collaborate with academic institutions to align vocational and technical training with operational requirements and emerging workforce needs.
* Represent the organization at career fairs, advisory boards, and educational consortiums to promote awareness of technical career paths.
* Facilitate instructor site visits, student tours, and hands-on training collaborations to strengthen long-term talent pipelines.
Basic Qualifications:
* Bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline.
* 4+ years of experience in a high-rate manufacturing or engineering environment.
* 2+ years of experience leading training or operations teams in a technical context.
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
* Experience developing and delivering training in regulated environments (e.g., AS9100, ISO9001).
* Strong understanding of industrial engineering, manufacturing systems, or operations research.
* Proficiency with learning management systems (LMS), training content development tools, and data visualization platforms (Tableau, Power BI).
* Experience translating manufacturing or workmanship performance data into training action plans.
* Demonstrated success onboarding large technical teams and improving productivity through training.
* Excellent executive communication, stakeholder alignment, and program management skills.
* Hands-on familiarity with manufacturing or flight hardware environments.
* Experience implementing change management and configuration control in training contexts.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
* Must be comfortable working in production and test environments that include exposure to noise, fumes, or confined spaces.
* Flexibility in schedule to support off-shift teams, test campaigns, and critical path activities.
* Physical ability to occasionally support training in hardware or outdoor environments.