Candidates with sustainment leadership experience in aerospace and defense will find this strategic role with high operational stakes and cross-functional collaboration.
Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.
Original posting from CHAOS Industries via Greenhouse
CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats.
CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com.
Role Overview:
CHAOS Industries is hiring a Vice President of Sustainment to own how every fielded CHAOS radar, RF, and mission system is kept ready, repaired, and improved after delivery. You will lead depot repair, refurbishment, RMAs, spares, and lifecycle support, and build the sustainment organization that scales with fleet growth. You will work daily with Manufacturing, Mission Assurance, Supply Chain, Engineering, and Programs, and you will be accountable for fleet readiness. This is an on-site role in either El Segundo, CA or Washington, D.C.
Job Responsibilities:
Depot and repair operations
Lead depot repair, refurbishment, and RMA operations for deployed radar, RF, and mission systems across all CHAOS product lines.
Own repair throughput, turnaround time, backlog, cost per repair, and fleet readiness metrics, and report them to executive leadership.
Run repair day to day without slowing turnaround on fielded products while you build the next operating model.
Reliability and field failures
Drive field-failure investigations and corrective action, including a closed-loop FRACAS process that feeds findings back to Engineering, Manufacturing, and Mission Assurance.
Use serialized tracking and configuration data to find failure trends early and prioritize design and process fixes.
Spares, obsolescence, and lifecycle
Set spares, obsolescence, and lifecycle support strategy for each product, sized to fleet growth and customer readiness commitments.
Plan repair levels (field, depot, replace) with Engineering and Supply Chain, and manage repair-parts availability and long-lead items.
Systems and scale
Stand up sustainment SOPs, workflows, tooling, and reporting infrastructure that any new product or site can adopt.
Choose and implement the systems sustainment runs on, such as ERP, repair and RMA tracking, and fleet-health dashboards, and drive adoption across teams.
Define a lifecycle support model that covers technical publications, training, and customer support as the installed base grows.
Team and cross-functional leadership
Recruit, develop, and lead a team of managers and individual contributors in repair, sustainment engineering, logistics, and customer support.
Align Manufacturing, Mission Assurance, Supply Chain, Engineering, and Programs on sustainment priorities, and remove obstacles for your team and partners.
Support proposals, contract terms, and customer reviews with sustainment plans, cost estimates, and readiness data.
Own the sustainment budget and organization design, and represent sustainment to the executive team and senior customers.
Stay hands-on when needed: no task is too small in a fast-growing company.
Minimum Requirements:
12+ years in sustainment, depot operations, repair operations, or lifecycle support.
10+ years of leadership experience, including leading managers and multi-site or multi-function teams.
Experience supporting complex aerospace, defense, RF, or electronics hardware.
Strong operational leadership in high-tempo environments, with a record of improving turnaround time and readiness.
Bachelor's degree in engineering, operations, supply chain, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience.
Ability to work on-site and to obtain and maintain any required U.S. security clearance.
Preferred Requirements:
Experience supporting deployed defense systems, including field and depot-level support for the U.S. government or allied customers.
Familiarity with FRACAS, serialized tracking, configuration management, and depot repair workflows.
Experience scaling a sustainment or MRO organization, including consolidating program-specific processes into one operating model.
Knowledge of reliability-centered maintenance, level of repair analysis, and product support analysis.
Experience selecting and rolling out ERP, MRO, or product lifecycle tooling.
Experience building a business case and defending it to executives and customers.
Startup or high-growth hardware company experience.
Advanced degree (MBA or technical master's) is a plus.
Why CHAOS?
Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
Our Perks: Free daily lunch while you're working onsite, fully-stocked kitchen, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses
Team Growth: 500+ employees and counting across 5 global offices
Salary Range: $300,000+
The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.
Recruiting Agencies: CHAOS Industries does not accept unsolicited resumes or outreach. Unsolicited submissions will not be reviewed or compensated.
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