Engineering Program Manager

Engineering Program Manager

Leidos is seeking an Engineering Program Manager (EPM) to join the Air Traffic Business Area within the Homeland Sector, supporting the development of the Leidos Common Automation Platform (L-CAP). L-CAP is a mission-critical, future-ready automation platform built on a hybrid cloud data mesh architecture, enabling next-generation air traffic management capabilities. As a second-line engineering manager, you will serve as the matrix leader for engineering management across an Agile Release Train of approximately 110 personnel — managing the People Managers who lead engineering teams, and owning workforce planning, organizational design, and engineering talent strategy for your ART. You report to the Chief Engineering Program Manager. We are building with an AI-first engineering mindset, embracing emerging AI capabilities and modern development practices to accelerate delivery, improve software quality, and continuously evolve how we design and build mission-critical systems. This position supports government programs and requires the ability to obtain and maintain a favorable Public Trust investigation.

This role is part of a growing program, and hiring will depend on available funding. We review applications on a rolling basis, but the timeline for interviews and offers may vary. In some cases, we may extend contingent offers that become active once funding is confirmed.

This position is located in Gaithersburg, MD; Egg Harbor Township, NJ; or Eagan, MN. This is an opportunity to contribute to projects that impact millions of air travelers.

This is a hybrid position requiring 3 days onsite and 2 days remote work. Candidates should reside a commutable distance to one of the above locations.

What You'll Do

• Serve as second-line engineering manager for an ART of ~110 personnel, directly managing 4–6 People Managers who lead engineering teams
• Own workforce planning and organizational design for the ART including team structure, headcount allocation, and skill mix optimization
• Drive engineering staffing decisions including hiring priorities, requisition development, and candidate selection governance
• Manage engineering talent pipeline ensuring the ART maintains adequate bench strength, succession depth, and critical-skill coverage
• Oversee career development strategy for engineering managers, ensuring People Managers are equipped to grow and retain their teams
• Govern performance management across the ART — calibrate ratings, align recognition, and ensure equitable evaluation standards
• Make cross-team resource allocation and rotation decisions to balance workload, develop talent, and address skill gaps
• Partner with the RTE and ART Product Manager on capacity planning, ensuring staffing aligns with delivery priorities
• Own engineering headcount budget and labor forecasting for the ART, coordinating with program finance on variance and projections
• Drive retention strategy including compensation alignment, engagement initiatives, and attrition risk mitigation
• Manage organizational change including team restructuring, role transitions, and onboarding/offboarding of engineering personnel
• Align engineering workforce composition with modernization priorities ensuring critical skill sets are developed and retained as legacy expertise transitions to cloud-native competencies
• Develop workforce transition plans supporting engineering personnel reskilling from legacy ATC systems to modern distributed service architectures
• Coordinate engineering resource strategy across ART boundaries ensuring program-wide workforce balance and avoiding single-point-of-failure dependencies
• Champion an AI-first engineering culture by identifying and applying AI-assisted development capabilities, automation, and emerging software engineering practices that improve developer productivity, code quality, testing, and delivery.

Core Technical Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 8+ years of engineering management experience including 3+ years as a second-line manager (managing managers)
• Demonstrated experience building, scaling, and retaining engineering organizations of 75+ personnel in a matrixed environment
• Workforce planning expertise including headcount forecasting, skill gap analysis, and organizational design
• Engineering talent acquisition governance including requisition strategy, interview processes, and hiring decisions
• Performance management at scale including calibration, promotion governance, and compensation planning
• Experience managing engineering managers and developing management capability within technical organizations
• Resource allocation and capacity management across multiple concurrent engineering teams
• Budget management including labor cost forecasting, variance analysis, and headcount planning
• Effective stakeholder management across program leadership, HR business partners, and talent acquisition
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust; US citizenship required; subject to government background investigation
• Experience managing workforce transitions in software-intensive modernization programs including skill migration and team restructuring
• Understanding of engineering competency frameworks and career ladder design for software and systems engineering disciplines

Preferred / Desired Qualifications

• Aviation, FAA, or defense sector engineering management experience
• SAFe or Agile organizational leadership experience (Lean Portfolio Management, Agile HR)
• Experience leading engineering organizations through technology transformation (legacy to cloud-native)
• Technical background in software or systems engineering providing credibility with engineering staff
• Talent development program design including mentoring frameworks, rotation programs, and technical leadership pipelines
• Matrix organization leadership with influence across functional and delivery boundaries
• Experience with engineering workforce analytics, retention modeling, and engagement measurement
• Familiarity with government contract staffing constraints including labor category alignment and clearance requirements

Why Leidos?

You'll work on systems where performance, precision, and reliability matter — every second. This is not experimental AI for prototypes. This is disciplined, responsible AI applied to mission-critical software that supports national infrastructure.

If you're excited by solving complex problems in regulated, real-world environments — and using AI as a force multiplier rather than a shortcut — we'd like to talk.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.