Josh Weitz, 38
Manager
Blue Origin
Kent, WA, United States
What Makes Josh an Engineering Leader
Josh balances the responsibility of supporting his team with the need to meet company budgets and timelines. In an aerospace environment that continually seeks to build more, faster and at lower cost, he understands the demands placed on the people doing the work.
Josh inspires his team without burning them out, helping buffer them from bureaucracy so they can focus on designing and building automation for rockets. His leadership combines accountability, practical support and a commitment to enabling engineers to tackle meaningful technical challenges.
Leadership & Industry Contributions
Blue Origin frequently updates procurement procedures in the interest of efficiency. While these changes may support the procurement organization, they also require other teams to learn new processes. Each time these changes occur, Josh develops training tools for the Factory Automation group.
He creates brief videos integrated into wiki pages that provide clear instructions for navigating procurement processes as efficiently as possible. This work allows the Factory Automation group to spend less time working through changing procedures and more time focused on its core function: designing automation to build rockets. By taking care of these everyday operational challenges, Josh helps make the group more efficient and enables engineers to focus on engineering challenges.
Josh has also helped establish controls engineering standards at Blue Origin. Guided by the company motto, Gradatim Ferociter, or “step by step, ferociously,” he recognized that the cautious approach appropriate for an early-stage rocket company needed to evolve as the organization became a manufacturing operation.
Josh began creating controls engineering standards for the Data Systems & Controls Engineering group and continued that work after moving to Factory Automation. His standardization efforts have expanded to cover four Blue Origin sites.
