Principal Product Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Principal Product Manager

About the Team

The Mission Applications (MA) Group within the AC2 Division creates outsized mission impact with our customers through specialized application and deployment of STR technology. Staff within the MA group have a deep understanding of missions and technology needs for national security with skills targeting transition of technology to operational use, including product management, UX Product implementation, software integration & mission engineering, platform engineering, DevOps, and program management. MA staff combine with other science and engineering staff from the various STR research and development groups to form dedicated product teams focused on accelerating the operational transition of cutting-edge software technologies.

The Role:

As a Principal Product Manager in the MA Group, you are a leader who is passionate about collaborating with high-performance teams to solve unique national security challenges with novel technologies. The Principal Product Manager is accountable for the ultimate success of the product and is responsible for ensuring that what is developed and delivered to customers is operationally valuable. The key capabilities of the Principal Product Manager are: 1) expertise on the customer's challenges, desires, workflows, and acquisition processes, 2) expertise on the product and the leveraged technologies, 3) understanding of STR's business and the role the product plays, and 4) deep knowledge of the market and industry, including trends, customer expectations and competition.

The Principal Product Manager role requires creativity and strong intellectual curiosity in applying new technologies to solve customer problems. Because the technologies we bring to market often represent the state of the art and may involve process changes, additional key skills for the Principal Product Manager include persistence and strong communication to drive cross-functional collaboration. Finally, the Principal Product Manager plays a key role in developing business strategy, business development, and growing the team.

What You Will Do:

• Engage directly with executive leaders, end users, build strong customer relationships, and constantly seek to apply new technology to solve real customer problems

• Empower the designers, engineers, and scientists to act with a meaningful degree of autonomy by developing and clearly communicating a unifying product vision and strategy

• Understand all stakeholders, the constraints in which those stakeholders operate, and create customer solutions that work within the constraints of the business

• Foster team collaboration to embrace the give and take between software functionality, user experience, and enabling technology

• Continuously improve the product discovery process to establish compelling value and identify key risks

• Hold high-integrity commitments to deliver viable solutions that work for the customer and business

• Work in a fast-paced environment to enable successful contract execution

• Build and mentor product managers across programs while continuously improving tooling and processes

This role will take advantage of STR's flexible, hybrid environment – when the work does not require use of STR's facilities, you are welcome to work remotely. 

Who You Are:

• US Defense or Intelligence Community expert with deep operational knowledge

• Senior level experience in guiding technical projects to translate mission needs into production software while identifying and tracking product risk across multiple teams and customers

• Aptitude for collaborating with stakeholders across a wide range of technical comfort levels

• Proven ability to motivate cross functional teams to perform at their best

• Comfortable working with data and complex analysis

• Demonstrated success decomposing a problem into addressable component parts

• Entrepreneurial spirit and eager to engage in technical marketing and business development

• Experience writing technical proposals and leading winning proposal efforts

• A U.S. citizen with active security clearance

Even Better:

• Master's degree in a technical field or MBA

• Prior military experience with emphasis on planning and executing complex missions

• 3+ years experience in product management / product ownership for an operational production software implementation

• Deep enough understanding of full-stack software technologies to consider capabilities and limitations

• Experience working with visual design tools to communicate ideas

• Fluency with software development best practices and tools

• Active TS/SCI security clearance

• Located near STR office in Carlsbad, CA, Arlington, VA, Woburn, MA, or Denver, CO; location in Honolulu, HI preferred as well.

Pay Information

Full-Time Salary Range: $220,000 - $260,000

The salary range listed is based on external market data. Offers are based on factors, such as but not limited to, the candidate's experience, education, training, key skills/critical skills, security clearances, and prevailing market and business conditions.

STR is a growing technology company with locations near Boston, MA, Arlington, VA, near Dayton, OH, Melbourne, FL, and Carlsbad, CA. We specialize in advanced research and development for defense, intelligence, and national security in: cyber; next generation sensors, radar, sonar, communications, and electronic warfare; and artificial intelligence algorithms and analytics to make sense of the complexity that is exploding around us.

STR is committed to creating a collaborative learning environment that supports deep technical understanding and recognizes the contributions and achievements of all team members. Our work is challenging, and we go home at night knowing that we pushed the envelope of technology and made the world safer.

STR is not just any company. Our people, culture, and attitude along with their unique set of skills, experiences, and perspectives put us on a trajectory to change the world. We can't do it alone, though - we need fellow trailblazers. If you are one, join our team and help to keep our society safe! Visit us at for more info.

STR is an equal opportunity employer. We are fully dedicated to hiring the most qualified candidate regardless of race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation and pregnancy), marital status, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

If you need a reasonable accommodation for any portion of the employment process, email us at View email address on us.fitly.work and provide your contact info.

Pursuant to applicable federal law and regulations, positions at STR require employees to obtain national security clearances and satisfy the requirements for compliance with export control and other applicable laws.