The posting
HADRIAN - MANUFACTURING THE FUTURE
Hadrian is building autonomous factories to reindustrialize America. By combining AI, advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing, we help aerospace and defense companies build rockets, satellites, aircraft, ships, and other mission-critical systems up to 10x faster and at significantly lower cost.
Following our $1.37B Series D at a $7.87B valuation, Hadrian is rapidly expanding our manufacturing footprint, launching new capabilities across welding, casting, forging, electronics, additive manufacturing, and more, while scaling our Factory-as-a-Service platform to transform how critical products are built.
Backed by leading investors including JPMorgan Chase, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Lux Capital, T. Rowe Price, and Morgan Stanley, we’re building the future of American manufacturing—and looking for exceptional people to help make it happen.
If you’re ready to take on the most challenging and rewarding work of your career while helping create American manufacturing jobs for generations to come, you’re exactly who we’re looking for.
THE ROLE
Hadrian is hiring our first dedicated Brand Designer. You will own how Hadrian looks, everywhere, and you will build that system while producing the work that carries it.
Be clear-eyed about the shape of this job. In the near term it is heavily hands-on. We have campaigns in market, recruiting pushes running, out of home to produce, launches to support, and a constant need for assets. You will be designing daily. Over time, as you build templates, systems, and support around you, the balance shifts toward defining our design language and directing the people and partners who apply it. The design strategy is genuinely yours to set. It just gets built while the work ships, not before it.
The subject matter is an unusual advantage. We make physical things in real factories: machines, metal, parts with tight tolerances, sparks. Very little of the design vocabulary of technology companies fits us well. Finding what does is the interesting part of this role.
WHY NOW
We have never had a designer. Our visual output today comes from a mix of external partners and internal improvisation, which means quality is inconsistent and nothing compounds, despite our head of marketing’s passion for graphic design. Meanwhile the volume is climbing sharply: an active brand and talent campaign, out of home production, recruiting collateral across multiple sites, and launches tied to new manufacturing capabilities. You arrive with more than enough real work to do and a blank slate on how it should look.
YOUR FIRST 12 MONTHS
Early on, you are producing: campaign and out of home artwork, social and recruiting assets, event and environmental graphics, and presentation design for external audiences. In parallel you start standardizing, so the same request does not get designed from zero twice. By the end of the year we would expect a working brand system that other people can use without you in the room, a clear point of view on our design language, and a defensible answer to what Hadrian should look like as it scales.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
Produce the work
- Design across the full range we need: campaign creative, out of home artwork, social and digital assets, recruiting and employer brand collateral, event and environmental graphics, merchandise, and presentations for external audiences.
- Work at real volume and real speed without letting quality slide, and know which pieces deserve extra time and which need to be good and done.
- Prepare production-ready files correctly, including large-format out of home specs, print production, and working to vendor and printer requirements.
- Art direct photography and video capture in our factories, including shot lists for the moments that make the work look like what it is.
Build the system
- Define and document our brand system over time: typography, color, layout, photographic and illustrative direction, iconography, and how the brand behaves across digital, print, environmental, and merchandise.
- Build templates and toolkits so recruiters, site teams, and marketing can produce on-brand material without a designer for every request.
- Develop the visual language for how we show manufacturing itself, including how we represent machines, parts, processes, and the people doing the work.
- Establish a sane operating model for design requests, including intake, prioritization, and review, so the function is not purely reactive.
Set direction and hold the standard
- Own the creative standard for Hadrian's visual output, including work produced by external agencies and partners. Write the briefs, give the direction, and send work back when it misses.
- Bring a real point of view to leadership on what our brand should be and defend it with reasoning rather than taste alone.
- Partner with growth marketing on creative that has to perform, and use performance feedback as an input to the work rather than a threat to it.
- Partner with communications and talent brand so that what we look like and what we say stay consistent, and respect the review paths that govern customer, program, and export-controlled information.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
- Portfolio: A strong portfolio is the primary requirement. We want to see range across digital, print or large format, and environmental or physical work, plus evidence of a system you built and not only individual artifacts.
- Experience: 6+ years in brand or visual design, in-house or agency, including work you owned from brief through production.
- Craft and speed: Genuinely excellent execution, delivered at pace. You can produce a lot without the work becoming generic.
- Systems thinking: You have built brand systems, guidelines, or template libraries that other people successfully used without you.
- Production knowledge: You understand print and large-format production, color management, and file preparation well enough that vendors do not have to correct you.
- Direction: You can brief and critique external partners clearly, and you are comfortable rejecting work that is not good enough.
- Ownership and ambiguity: You are comfortable being the only designer, setting your own standards, and building the function while delivering against a full queue.
WHAT WILL SET YOU APART
- Experience designing for industrial, aerospace, defense, automotive, or hardware companies, or any brand where the product is physical.
- Environmental and experiential design experience, including signage, wayfinding, factory spaces, and event build.
- Motion design, video editing, or the ability to direct and finish short-form video.
- Art direction experience on industrial photo and video shoots.
- Experience as a first or early design hire, with a view on what you would do differently this time.
- Comfort designing performance creative and iterating against results.
- Merchandise and apparel design experience, including working with manufacturers.
COMPENSATION
For this role, the target salary range is $224,000 - $260,000 (actual range may vary based on experience).
This is the lowest to highest salary we reasonably and in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range, and the range may be modified in the future. An employee's pay position within the salary range will be based on several factors, including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.
BENEFITS FOR FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES
- Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans for employees 401k
- Relocation support may be provided for certain situations, based on business need.
- Flexible vacation policy
- Equity
ITAR REQUIREMENTS
To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen or national, lawful permanent resident, protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.
USE OF AI IN HIRING
Hadrian uses AI-assisted tools in our recruiting and hiring processes to help our team work more efficiently. This may include tools that help organize and analyze recruiting data, as well as an AI-powered notetaker that can record and transcribe interviews and help coordinate feedback. These tools support our team and are not used to make hiring decisions. All candidate evaluations and hiring decisions are performed by humans. If an interview will be recorded, you will be notified in advance and may opt out at any time with no impact on your candidacy. Candidate data processed through these tools is subject to the same protections described in our Privacy Policy https://www.hadrian.co/privacy-policy.
CONSIDERATION OF CRIMINAL HISTORY
Hadrian will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of all applicable laws. We do not ask about criminal history on our application, and we do not consider criminal history before making a conditional offer of employment.
HADRIAN IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
Hadrian does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, marital status, mental status, physical disability or any other legally protected status. When necessary, the Company also makes reasonable accommodations for disabled candidates and employees, including for candidates or employees who are disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.
