Head of Manufacturing, Near Space Labs
Stratospheric Robots
Aerial imagery and earth observation
Job no longer available
Aerial imagery and earth observation
21-100 employees
Job no longer available
21-100 employees
Company mission
To democratize high-quality geospatial intelligence.
Role
Who you are
- 8+ years of experience in a hardware production environment
- Hands-on experience with design, manufacturing or test processes in Robotics, Aeronautics, Drones, Auto, IoT, or a similar field containing hardware and embedded software
- Degree in engineering; industrial, mechanical, production, electronics or similar
- Experience managing staff
- Mission-oriented and focused on accomplishing goals autonomously
- Willingness to cover different hats and roles as the company expands
- Not afraid of using a screwdriver yourself when necessary
What the job involves
- We are looking for a self-starter, full-time Head of Production to ramp up and lead our manufacturing team based in our Barcelona, Spain
- This position reports directly to the CTO and works closely with our Flight Operations, Fleet Performance and R&D teams
- Hire, train and lead a team of 15 people to manufacture our fleet of aerial robots
- Deliver flight-worthy units to our operations teams and to ensure successful flight missions
- Set up and manage a small-scale production floor in our office,
- Set up production processes and continuously improve assembly checklists and QA tests
- With a dedicated support specialist, manage the supply chain and shipping logistics
- Predict and anticipate stocking needs based on quantitative analysis of failure rates
- Think strategically about how to scale our production floor as the company expands
- Collaborate closely with the other engineering team to identify areas with the potential to improve robot manufacturing and/or reliability
Our take
Near Space Labs provides customers with high-res imagery of the earth. The twist is, this isn’t satellite imagery, but imagery collected by a zero-emission fleet of wind-powered weather balloons, each one able to capture up to 1,000 square kilometres of imagery on each flight. This makes for an eco-friendly, low-cost alternative to satellite imagery and results in images up to 50 times clearer than those collected by satellite.
The company just raised $20M to expand its helium balloon-powered Swift aircraft. This funding will help it grow its coverage across the US and support industries like insurance and agriculture with clearer, cheaper aerial imagery.
This puts Near Space in an exciting position to offer wide-scale, high-res coverage while staying eco-friendly. Its zero-emission tech and simple design make it a smart, sustainable alternative to drones and satellites, showing how clean innovation can scale and make a real-world impact.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Apr 2025
$20m
SERIES B
Sep 2021
$13m
SERIES A
Total funding: $33m
Company HQ
Brooklyn Navy Yard, NY
Leadership
Rema Matevosyan
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously a Software Developer with InnoRise, then at the Institute for System Programming of Russian Academy of Sciences. Subsequently held a junior research fellowship at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.
Ignasi Lluch
(Co-Founder & CTO)Worked on the Galileo Evolutions Team at the European Space Agency, and then as a Space Systems Engineering Researcher at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.
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