About NordSpace:
NordSpace (https://nordspace.com) is a Canadian startup with the mission to advance life on Earth, from space. NordSpace is committed to extremely rapid innovation and development of the most ambitious aerospace projects with the most ambitious team. With divisions spanning everything from space robotics to satellites to rockets, NordSpace is driven to bring space closer to Earth and inspire generations of space explorers.
About the Role:
As Director of Operations, you will own the operational backbone that every NordSpace programme depends on: supply chain and procurement, logistics, facilities across headquarters, test site and launch site, information technology, health, safety and environment, and physical and data security. You will provide the infrastructure, material, systems, and safeguards that power the NordSpace team. You will build and grow your team where the company needs it most, hiring ahead of demand where a gap would constrain a programme, and developing the leaders and structure required to support NordSpace’s goals as it scales.
- Reports to: VP Finance & Operations.
- Mandates to establish/scale: Logistics; Facility Management (HQ, test site, launch site); IT Management; Health, Safety and Environment; Security and Controlled Goods Program.
- Based in-person at HQ in Markham, ON, with occasional travel to other NordSpace locations in ON and NL.
Core Responsibilities:
Cross-Programme Operations Leadership
- Serve as the single point of accountability to the Senior Leadership Team for company-wide operational readiness, capacity, and constraint.
- Own the allocation of shared operational capacity between the Launch and Space Systems programmes, including facilities, test infrastructure, logistics, and IT.
- Translate program roadmaps and customer commitments into forward operational plans, and give leadership honest early warning how infrastructure, material, or site readiness needs to improve to meet company requirements.
- Supply operational inputs to VP Finance & Operations for company budgeting, forecasting, and capital planning, and build the business cases behind facility expansion and capital equipment; partner with VP Policy and Government Relations on regulatory strategy while owning compliance execution.
- Own the enterprise operational risk register and drive mitigation of the constraints most likely to threaten schedule, safety, security, or cost.
- Build, structure, and develop the operations organization, with accountability for hiring, onboarding, performance management, and leadership development, growing each function as company goals require.
Facilities & Multi-Site Operations
- Own facility management staff across headquarters, test site, and launch site, including maintenance, utilities, grounds, site services, and lifecycle planning for buildings and fixed infrastructure.
- Maintain test and launch site infrastructure in a state of readiness, managing preventive maintenance, calibration, certification, and equipment replacement against programme schedules.
- Lead facility expansion and capital projects from requirements definition through contractor selection, construction oversight, commissioning, and handover.
- Manage site permitting, environmental compliance, and municipal and landowner relationships, coordinating with VP Policy and Government Relations where regulatory or community engagement is involved.
- Provide operational support to test campaigns and launch operations, including site mobilization, consumables, propellant and pressurant supply, crewing logistics, accommodation, and turnaround, in support of the technical program teams.
Security and Controlled Goods Program
- Own physical security across headquarters, test site, and launch site, including access control, surveillance, visitor and contractor management, and protection of controlled hardware, together with data and information security, monitoring and incident response, security awareness training, insider threat and site emergency planning, and the security posture required by government and defence customers.
- Register and maintain standing as a Designated Official with Public Services and Procurement Canada and administer the Controlled Goods Programme, holding accountability for the programme, supporting personnel security screening, and ensuring full compliance at all times.
- Regulatory and export control: Execute operational compliance, including Export Control List classification support, permit and licence administration, controlled goods handling, and the handling requirements attaching to US-origin ITAR or EAR content, escalating policy-level matters back to Policy and Government Relations.
Key Interfaces:
This role sets the direction, policies, procedures, and resourcing for these functions, and holds them to account for delivery and performance. Key working interfaces:
- Facilities and test infrastructure: Operations confirms sites, stands, and pads are certified and available; Engineering confirms test readiness and executes.
- Safety and environment: the Manager, HSE owns the HSE programme across all sites: propellant and hazardous materials handling, pressure systems, high voltage, lifting and rigging, machine shop and laboratory practice, permit-to-work and lockout/tagout, emergency response and incident investigation, environmental compliance and reporting, and the training and certification regime behind them, together with compliance under provincial occupational health and safety and dangerous goods legislation. Operations sets HSE policy, training, and permit regimes and holds audit and stop-work authority in all workspaces, exercisable without regard to programme schedule pressure and with independent escalation to the CEO; Engineering ensures its personnel comply and retains flight safety, range safety, and mission assurance.
- Enterprise systems and IT: the Manager, IT runs end-user computing, networks and connectivity across all sites including the operational networks that test and launch activities depend on, servers and cloud infrastructure, identity and access management, service desk, IT governance and vendor and licence management, backup, disaster recovery and business continuity, and the enterprise application platform, including PLM, ERP or MRP, document and configuration management, and collaboration tooling; Engineering and Systems Engineering hold authority over technical content and configuration within it.
- Programme demand — the Launch and Space Systems Programme Directors set mission priorities and forward requirements; Operations plans capacity against them and flags where infrastructure or materiel will not support a committed date.
Qualifications
- Ten or more years of progressive operations experience in aerospace, defence, advanced manufacturing or comparable high-reliability, safety-critical industry, including at least five years leading multi-functional teams at senior manager or director level.
- Demonstrated ownership of a shared-services or enabling-functions portfolio spanning several of supply chain, facilities, IT, HSE, and security — and the judgement to lead credibly in the functions you have not personally run.
- Experience operating in a matrix organization, allocating finite operational capacity between competing programmes and holding the line on prioritization decisions.
- Multi-site operational leadership, ideally including a remote or austere site; direct experience with test range, launch site, or comparable field operations is a strong asset.
- Practical command of operational safety in hazardous environments — propellants, pressure systems, energetic or high-voltage hardware — and of the Canadian regulatory frameworks that govern them.
- Familiarity with Canada’s Controlled Goods Programme and export control compliance sufficient to hold a Designated Official and security function to account, and to recognize when the programme is under-resourced or exposed; direct CGP or ITAR/EAR compliance experience is an asset.
- Working knowledge of aerospace quality and configuration standards (AS9100, ECSS, or equivalent) and the documentation regimes they require.
- Sufficient technical literacy in enterprise IT and information security to set direction, evaluate risk, and hold vendors and internal leads to account.
- Commercial and financial fluency: building capital business cases, delivering against a budget and explaining variances, and operating within a formal control and delegation-of-authority framework.
- Track record of scaling operations through a growth phase: introducing structure, systems, and metrics to an organization that previously ran informally, without stalling its pace.
- Executive presence and credibility with customers, regulators, and investors, combined with the willingness to be present on the floor and at the pad.
- Willingness to be based on-site with regular presence across all NordSpace facilities, and to travel to supplier sites, the test site, and the launch site, including extended deployments during launch campaigns.
This posting is for an existing vacancy. Thank you to all who apply. Candidates who are successfully selected for an interview will be notified by email.
Applicants must be legally authorized to work in Canada and able to obtain and maintain a security assessment under the Controlled Goods Program (Defence Production Act) as a condition of their employment.
Compensation will be determined at the Company’s discretion, based on job-related factors, which may include, but are not limited to, relevant knowledge, skills, experience, and education and/or training. NordSpace encourages all qualified applicants to apply, even if the posted salary range does not align with their expectations.
NordSpace is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates; all hiring decisions are based on merit and job-related qualifications, without discrimination on any ground protected by the Ontario Human Rights Code. Accommodations are available on request at any stage of the selection process — please contact
[email protected].
