Technical Program Manager

About Merlin: Merlin is a venture backed aerospace startup building a non-human pilot to enable both reduced crew and uncrewed flight. Backed by some of the world’s leading investors, Merlin is scaling alongside our customers to begin leveraging autonomy today to solve some of aviation’s biggest challenges. About You: You are a mission-driven builder who thrives at the intersection of technology, execution, and impact. As a Technical Program Manager at Merlin Labs, you’ll play a central role in bringing our autonomy technology to life—delivering the Merlin Pilot into operational service on military aircraft and driving execution across some of the most ambitious programs in aerospace. Embedded within our fast-moving autonomy and flight systems teams, you’ll work side-by-side with engineers, business stakeholders, and customer teams to ensure technical momentum and cross-functional alignment. You bring technical fluency, structured thinking, and the ability to bring clarity to complexity. You’re energized by hard problems, unafraid of ambiguity, and relentless about delivering results. Location: Merlin HQ, Boston, MA. Responsibilities Own delivery of complex, cross-functional aerospace and defense programs—spanning autonomy development, flight test, integration, and certification. Drive technical execution rhythms across engineering, systems integration, certification, flight test, and business stakeholders. Serve as the central point of coordination for internal teams, subcontractors, and government customers—ensuring alignment, transparency, and trust. Define and maintain detailed program plans, including scope, milestones, dependencies, and risk mitigation strategies. Identify blockers early and drive resolution through structured problem‑solving and escalation. Shape and manage program scopes and deliverables in alignment with contractual, technical, and business objectives. Support capture and proposal efforts by developing cost estimates, technical inputs, and schedules. Lead stakeholder communications—from internal reviews to formal customer engagements and milestone briefings. Build scalable processes and tools that improve execution velocity and visibility across projects. Travel up to 25% to support key integration events, flight test campaigns, and customer engagements. Requirements Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical field. 5+ years of experience managing complex technical programs—ideally within aerospace, defense, or autonomy. Demonstrated success delivering integrated hardware-software systems under high accountability. Technical fluency—you can engage deeply with engineers and recognize risks and tradeoffs. Expert‑level project management skills—tools, methods, and the ability to bring order to chaos. Strong communicator—able to engage diverse technical and non-technical audiences. Proven ability to work within dynamic environments and adapt to evolving priorities. Ability to obtain a U.S. Secret Security Clearance. Nice to Haves Active U.S. Security Clearance. Experience leading defense programs with DoD and/or FAA certification elements. Background in autonomous systems, flight control, or avionics integration. Familiarity with U.S. DoD airworthiness, flight test planning, and acquisition processes. Benefits Health, dental, and life insurance. Unlimited vacation and flexible work environment. 401(k) with company match. Possibility of equity participation. Merlin Labs is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy), gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, military service or obligation or disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. All job offers are contingent upon the candidate passing background and reference checks. #J-18808-Ljbffr