Head of IT Infrastructure & DevOps, Freeform
$150-250k
+ Stock options
Office located in Hawthorne, CA
Metal 3D printing factories
Open for applications
Metal 3D printing factories
21-100 employees
Open for applications
$150-250k
+ Stock options
Office located in Hawthorne, CA
21-100 employees
Company mission
To make the transformative power of 3D printing available to all industries at scale and unlock the future of innovation.
Role
Who you are
- We are looking for someone who is well-versed in modern big data infrastructure technologies with a keen eye for pragmatic and simple solutions
- 8+ years of enterprise level IT engineering experience with at least 1 year of technical or personnel leadership experience
- Strong knowledge of both on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure
- Hands-on experience with Kubernetes (K8s)
- Expertise in managing a Linux-based infrastructure with Terraform, Ansible, and Kubespray
- Experience with DevOps practices and tools
Desirable
- Proven experience in a senior IT leadership role, preferably in a startup environment
- Excellent leadership and team management skills
- Strong problem-solving and decision-making abilities
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Knowledge of both corporate and engineering IT infrastructure needs, including both Microsoft and Linux-based technologies
- Understanding of security protocols and compliance standards, such as NIST 800-171 and ITAR
- Degree in computer science or computer engineering
What the job involves
- In this role, you will be responsible for scaling a robust IT infrastructure that is needed to process and store petabytes worth of data generated by our fleet of autonomous printing factories
- You will oversee both on-premises and cloud-based IT infrastructure, ensuring the highest standards of availability, scalability, and security
- Your role will be critical in fostering a DevOps culture, optimizing costs, and maintaining compliance with industry standards
- This is a unique opportunity to build a world-class datacenter and IT infrastructure that will enable Freeform to deploy its software-defined factory technology across the globe
- All leadership roles at Freeform are technical in nature, so in addition to being a leader you will be expected to spend a significant portion of your time working alongside the team as a technical contributor architecting, developing, and testing solutions
- Lead the design, deployment, and maintenance of on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure, ensuring high availability, scalability, and security of IT systems
- Support the Kubernetes infrastructure, including cluster management, orchestration, and scaling (on-prem and cloud)
- Architect and scale state-of-the-art storage systems for a big-data infrastructure, ensuring efficient, reliable, and secure data storage at the multi-petabyte scale
- Foster a DevOps culture to enhance collaboration between engineering teams. Implement CI/CD pipelines and automation tools to streamline workflows and improve deployment frequency
- Optimize and manage virtualization and containerization technologies
- Design, implement, and manage the company's networking infrastructure, ensuring robust connectivity, performance optimization, and security across all network layers
- Implement and manage comprehensive security protocols to protect data, systems, and infrastructure. Conduct regular security audits and vulnerability assessments to ensure the highest levels of protection
- Ensure infrastructure is built and scaled with cost and resource-efficiency in mind
- Ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations for network security operations such as NIST and ITAR
- Lead and mentor the IT team by fostering a culture of continuous improvement and professional development
Our take
There is a huge amount of demand for precision metal fabrication in future-focused industries such as rocketry and vehicle manufacturing, but legacy production techniques are too slow and inflexible to meet the requirements of rapidly changing designs in the most innovative firms. Enter Freeform Future, a company which builds metal 3D printing factories to allow manufacturers to swiftly and efficiently go from idea to mass production.
Founded by engineers with extensive experience at SpaceX, Freeform seeks to replace existing metal fabrication works - typified with heavy reliance on manual labour and legacy processes - with 3D printers and automated software technologies. Rather than needing to train a large workforce on production techniques, Freeform will be able to print almost any metal item at production scale on demand, with a turnaround time of days rather than weeks.
Though having only emerged from stealth in 2023, Freeform has some large-scale customers including autonomous trucking firm Embark and rocket part manufacturer, Ursa Major. After raising significant funding in early 2023, the company is moving from prototype to production, scaling up its operations to meet the growing demand for rapidly produced, high-quality metal components.
Steph
Company Specialist
Insights
Company
Funding (1 round)
Feb 2023
$45m
EARLY VC
Total funding: $45m
Company benefits
- Significant stock option packages
- 100% employer-paid Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance (premium PPO and HMO options)
- Life insurance
- Traditional and Roth 401(k)
- Relocation assistance provided
- Paid vacation, sick leave, and company holidays
- Generous Paid Parental Leave and extended transition back to work for the birthing parent
- Free daily catered lunch and dinner, and fully stocked kitchenette
- Casual dress, flexible work hours, and regular catered team building events
Company HQ
Hawthorne, CA
Articles
Leadership
Erik Palitsch
(CEO)Previously was Propulsion Development Manager at SpaceX. Before that was a Solid Propulsion Systems Engineer for NASA.
Thomas Ronacher
(President)Before co-founding Freeform, was VP Hardware Engineering at Hyperloop One and Thermal System Lead for Virgin Galactic. Prior to that was Principal Design Engineer with Seal Science and Senior Propulsion Analyst at SpaceX.
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