Technical Program Manager

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Maneuver Dominance team at Anduril develops operationally relevant, multi-asset autonomy. We are focused on making large groups of autonomous systems work effectively together. We leverage existing Anduril drone platforms like Ghost or Altius, in addition to bringing 3rd party platforms into Anduril’s Lattice ecosystem.

ABOUT THE JOB

We are looking for a Technical Program Manager to join our rapidly growing team in Costa Mesa, CA. In this role, you will manage a new aircraft development program from clean sheet design, through review gates and testing, to customer delivery. You will develop a program schedule, define milestones, identify costs and come up with a budgetary plan, and communicate with executive leadership. You understand what a clean sheet aircraft development program looks like, and what it takes to get a product from design to first flight. You will be a major advocate for this program, not only with customers but also internal stakeholders, pushing for it’s prioritization, growth, and adoption.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Lead, manage, and execute large, technical programs, from early stage design through to technology development, system integration, testing and deployment, and management of a growing engineering team.
• Provide meaningful insight into current and future customer needs. You will develop solutions, , provide accurate and timely accounting of resources, and ensure crips comms at all levels.
• Partner deeply with engineering leaders to drive successful program execution and team velocity across groups of engineering teams and more broadly across departments.
• Build trust with Anduril teammates, vendors, partners, and potential customers, and work closely with users, vendors and government stakeholders through effective communication, positive attitude, and meticulous follow-through.
• Forge longstanding customer relationships by working closely with Anduril Growth personnel, and help establish beach heads in new areas of interest.
• Autonomously execute on broad and/or ambiguous requirements from internal engineering, program office, and third party corporate partners to own successful delivery of outcomes on multiple programs simultaneously.
• Coordinate and execute frequent test events involving various levels of software and hardware, from full-software simulations at Anduril HQ to full hardware-in-the-loop demonstrations at test sites
• Demonstrate high ownership on all pieces of work; become a trusted partner to both Government Partners and Anduril’s engineers
• Manage, unblock, and accelerate cross-team projects spanning multiple functional teams and cross-functional initiatives. Instill an efficient project management mindset and workflow across the teams.
• Identify, resolve, escalate key cross team dependencies.
• Collaborate closely with other partner teams, such as hardware, product, and test operations as needed.
• Remove obstacles to drive clarity and progress, identify gaps in communication or schedule, manage issue escalations and provide support to teams balancing competing priorities, and drive results proactively.
• Understand technical implementation at the architectural level and propose technical alternatives when necessary; ask questions that clarify priorities.
• Understand the capabilities and limitations of Anduril systems and 3rd party platforms. In this role, you will work with engineers to connect the evolving product theses with the mission and customer requirements, taking an expansive view and developing data-backed opinions on product direction.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Physics, Engineering or applicable discipline specific to the needs of the MD Team.
• 10+ years experience as a Technical Program Manager, Senior Program Manager, Technical Product Manager, Engineering Manager, or Engineer.
• Experience with clean sheet aircraft programs and taking new aircraft from concept to first flight.
• Proven experience delivering technology to government organizations or large commercial institutions.
• A strong familiarity with with unmanned aircraft, autonomous systems, robotics, or related aerospace / defense technologies.
• Ability build trusting relationships and partner with internal teams like strategic growth, software, and hardware in the development and execution of different contracted and strategic efforts.
• Experience building trusting relationships and managing vendors, supply chain and customers.
• Ability to work within organizations with minimal structure and with minimal direction.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Solid technical aptitude and an ability to understand technical designs, software development lifecycle, challenges and risks; ability to work closely and effectively with engineering teams.
• Strong experience in project management and project management technologies (e.g. JIRA and Confluence); practical familiarity with both Agile and Waterfall methodologies and ability to apply them where best suited.
• Must be willing to travel up to 25%.
• Eligible to obtain an active U.S. Secret security clearance.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 12+ years experience as a Technical Program Manager, Senior Program Manager, Technical Product Manager, Engineering Manager, or Engineer in an autonomous systems, robotics, or software development environment.
• Significant customer-facing experience leading high profile and high stakes programs, including strong interpersonal skills and executive gravitas.
• Experience with UAV Design or Rotorcraft design.
• Experience with Defense Acquisition Processes, including System Requirements Reviews, Preliminary / Critical Design Reviews, Production Readiness Reviews, etc.
• Experience in building programs for software deliverables from the ground up
• Experience with open architecture concepts & interoperability standards (e.g. STANAG 4586, OMS/UCI, FACE)
• Professional certifications such as CISSP, OSCP, GIAC-PEN, Prosci, SAFe or PMP