Senior Program Manager

Company Overview

By Light Professional IT Services LLC readies warfighters and federal agencies with technology and systems engineered to connect, protect, and prepare individuals and teams for whatever comes next. Headquartered in McLean, VA, By Light supports defense, civilian, and commercial IT customers worldwide. 

Position Overview

The Senior Program Manager at By Light takes a hands-on approach to oversee the cost, schedule, and technical compliance of the company’s portfolio of programs, including both active customer-funded programs and internal research and development (IR&D) initiatives that support future growth and capture opportunities. They are responsible for actively managing customer relationships and communications on a day-to-day basis across multiple concurrent programs and projects.

The ideal candidate for this role should have prior experience as a program manager, specifically in capture management, and should be familiar with working on complex programs in a fast-paced, product development, defense contractor environment, while also supporting strategic internal investments aligned to future business opportunities.

Responsibilities

• Actively participate in proposal development and contract negotiations.
• Build pricing and work-breakdown strategies during the close-in capture process.
• Set up and activate project sites in accordance with By Light PM ISO Procedures.
• Develop project schedules, including costs, deliverables, risks, issues, and resource allocation, across multiple simultaneous programs and IR&D efforts.
• Establish budgets and cost controls, demonstrating a strong understanding of cost structure, pool rates, and ETC’s (Estimate to Complete).
• Collaborate with functional managers to define and allocate appropriate resources in a finite capacity environment supporting both contracted programs and IR&D projects.
• Participate in iteration planning meetings to ensure project milestones are met.
• Identify and manage issues and risks to ensure successful and timely project delivery across the entire program portfolio.
• Conduct requirements and design reviews to ensure products meet customer needs and corporate objectives.
• Work with stakeholders to ensure features comply with technical specifications.
• Continuously provide project gap analysis and proactively offer viable options, solutions, and corrective actions to maintain project success.
• Foster deep customer loyalty by actively managing expectations and proactively seeking favorable decisions and outcomes from customer partners.
• Proactively develop revenue growth opportunities.
• Manage and prioritize a portfolio of multiple customer-funded programs and internal IR&D projects, ensuring alignment with corporate strategy, technical roadmaps, and future capture objectives.
• Oversee IR&D project execution, including scope definition, cost tracking, schedule adherence, and technical maturity, to support emerging capabilities and future business opportunities.
• Manage and prioritize By Light’s portfolio of projects while collaborating with key internal stakeholders to deliver programmatic earnings and exceed customer expectations.
• Additional duties may be assigned as necessary.

Required Experience/Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Project Management, Engineering (preferred), Business Management, or a related field.
• 10 plus years of proven program management success.
• Experience in constructing complex multi-discipline technology programs and managing key performance risks.
• Experience as a capture manager or systems engineer on one or more programs.
• Microsoft Project and Excel fluent.

Preferred Experience/Qualifications

• Ten or more years of experience managing multimillion-dollar projects or programs.
• VR/AR or Simulation or like technology experience.
• Exposure and experience with JIRA.

Special Requirements/Security Clearance

• Ability to obtain a Secret Clearance.
• Must be willing to travel up to 50%.

Physical Demands

• Must be capable of sitting for extended periods of time.