Director of Manufacturing Engineering

• Company: Wave
• Ryde Instruments is growing its world-class technical team for quantum sensor-systems for 5G applications.
• Wave
• Ryde is a spin-off from Quantum Valley Ideas Laboratories (QVIL), well-supported by both QVIL and wireless industry leaders.
• Wave
• Ryde is located in Waterloo, Canada (near Toronto), in the heart of Canada’s ‘Quantum Valley’ with excellent academic research and technology communities, including outstanding universities.
• The Wave
• Ryde Instruments team includes pioneering leaders in quantum sensors and wireless technologies.
• Wave
• Ryde is an early-stage revenue company whose products are for commercial and defense markets.

Job Description

As our Director of Manufacturing Engineering, you will serve as a key leader responsible for setting the strategic vision and driving operational excellence in our manufacturing facilities. Reporting directly to the CTO, this role bridges engineering and daily manufacturing floor execution.

The primary objectives are leadership of manufacturing in the areas of productization, design-for-manufacturability (DFM), design-for-cost (DFC), design-for-reliability (DFR). You will scale operations, optimize throughput, and reduce unit costs while enforcing world-class quality standards.

This position establishes performance metrics (KPIs) and serves as a cross-functional partner—working closely with Engineering, Research and Development. You will also manage the supply chain, quality assurance, introduce new products (NPI), navigate supply disruptions, and recruit, mentor, and build a high-performing manufacturing workforce.

The role requires hands-on experience with mid-volume (1,000s) productization, NPI, and manufacturing, as well as enough technical experience to interact with a technical team comprised of scientists and engineers.

Key responsibilities

• Direct day-to-day manufacturing engineering, productization, operations, production schedules, and workflow assemblies to maximize throughput.
• Leads Manufacturing Engineering including collaboration on productization and DFM with technical team.
• Leads new product introductions.
• Leads Manufacturing Engineering for scale-up efforts for enterprise-class products.
• Oversee quality assurance protocols and enforce compliance with regulatory, environmental, and occupational safety standards
• Develop and implement cost-reduction and reliability improvement strategies.
• Manage relationships with a major manufacturing strategic partners to streamline and scale production.
• Ensure compliance with industry and military standards.
• Lead procurement, inventory, and logistics teams to optimize supply chain flows and material availability.
• Implement Lean, Six Sigma, or Operational Excellence methodologies to reduce waste, downtime, and operational costs.
• Develop and execute long-term manufacturing strategies, capacity planning, and capital expenditure budgets.
• Recruit, mentor, and build high-performing manufacturing, engineering and maintenance teams.

Required qualifications

• B.S. in Engineering (Manufacturing, Electrical, Mechanical, or related field).
• Direct experience with mid-volume (1,000s) manufacturing.
• Proven expertise in productization, new product introduction, and DFM for complex systems integrating electronics, optoelectronics, and optics.
• Lead, develop & grow a small team and constructively work with R&D / development Team
• Ability to work directly with hardware engineers and scientists to ensure product design choices optimize manufacturing yields, cost, and component sourcing early on.
• Experience identifying, negotiating with, and managing third-party Contract Manufacturers (CMs), Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs), and overseas supply chain partners.
• Ability to communicate with people effectively.
• Strong teamwork, communication, and documentation skills.
• Comfort operating with minimal team structure, constrained budgets, and rapidly changing product roadmaps without sacrificing quality or safety.
• Experience securing early regulatory approvals and product certifications (e.g., CE, UL, FCC, ISO 9001/13485) required for commercial production.
• Willingness to move between high-level strategic planning and working alongside engineers and technicians on the manufacturing floor to debug production line issues.

Preferred

• Proven experience in implementing Design-for-Reliability principles.
• Proficient in MIL-STD-810 standards, space qualification and compliance testing.
• Proven track record of implementing cost-reduction strategies in manufacturing.
• Extensive experience collaborating with manufacturing partners (OEM, ODM), and managing supply chains.
• Ability to align non-technical stakeholders (founders, investors, sales) with realistic production timelines, yield expectations, and unit economics.
• Hands-on experience choosing and setting up lightweight, scalable ERP/MRP or inventory management systems (e.g., Katana, NetSuite, Odoo) from the ground up.

WaveRyde Instruments offers a competitive compensation and benefits package as well as an exciting, challenging and supportive work atmosphere. If you are interested in being a part of this team and mission, we encourage you to apply.

Applications will be considered until the position is filled.