Senior Technical Program Manager

About the Role

As a Senior Technical Program Manager, you will own the commitments on your assigned programs to government customers, company partners, and vendors, and ensure each one is delivered on its contracted date.
This is a technical role. You will understand the product deeply enough to assess engineering plans and technical risk, translate customer requirements for the engineering team, and represent the technical program directly to customers.
This role carries a high degree of ownership and autonomy. You will have broad latitude to decide how your programs are planned and run, along with direct accountability for their results.
This role reports to program leadership and is based on-site in Los Angeles, with travel to Mojave, test sites, customers, and vendors. It requires access to ITAR-controlled information, so you must be a U.S. person as defined by ITAR.

What You'll Do

• Customer deliverables: Own contracted deliverables to government and company customers on your assigned programs, including hardware, test events, reports, contract data requirements, and technical data packages.

• Technical translation: Convert contract requirements and customer requests into clear priorities and tasks for the engineering team. Lead requirements breakdown, support design reviews, and manage technical and contract changes.

• Cost and schedule execution: Build and maintain integrated program schedules and budgets from contract award through delivery, and drive the team to contracted dates.

• Technical risk: Identify technical and schedule risks early, work through tradeoffs with engineers, and lead them to resolution.

• Customer interface: Serve as the program contact for specific customers, leading technical reviews, status updates, and milestone discussions. Work with Business Development team to shape and identify follow-on work.

• Proposals and contracts: Support proposal development and contract negotiations, confirming that proposed scope, price, and schedule are achievable and that terms meet FAR and DFARS requirements.

• Program processes: Use and improve lightweight planning and reporting processes that give leadership a clear view of program status without slowing the team down.

Skills We're Hiring For

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or a related technical field, or equivalent hands-on technical experience

• 5+ years of experience on complex engineering programs

• Program/Mission management experience on complex hardware programs, with direct ownership of cost, schedule, and deliverables

• Experience in a high-pressure, rapid R&D environment, such as SpaceX or a comparable organization

• A record of delivering hardware programs to committed dates

• Working knowledge of how the U.S. government buys, contracts for, and fields defense systems

• Ability to learn the full product in depth and earn the trust of senior engineers

• Clear written and verbal communication with engineers, executives, customers, and vendors, including technical writing

Bonus Points For

• Experience at another deep tech startup

• Experience as an engineer on complex hardware systems, especially missile, launch vehicle, spacecraft, or other aerospace and defense systems

• Experience managing government contracts, including FAR-based contracts and Other Transaction Agreements

• Experience taking hardware from R&D into production

• An active security clearance