Technical Program Manager, Small Drones

Technical Program Manager, Small Drones Define and drive the software roadmap for TRS products ensuring timely cross-team delivery Location: Costa Mesa, California, United States Compensation: $129,000 – $171,000 USD per year About the role: Anduril Industries is a defense technology company that leverages AI and robotics to create advanced autonomous systems. The Technical Program Manager will define the software roadmap for TRS products such as Ghost, Anvil, Bolt, and Altius, coordinating across engineering, product, and testing teams to deliver high‑quality autonomous drone capabilities. About the team: The Tactical Recon & Strike team develops small aerial drones and related systems. The team takes concepts to operational systems, working closely with specialist teams across software, hardware, robotics, and mobile interfaces. What You’ll Do Define the software roadmap for core TRS Products like Ghost, Anvil, Bolt, and Altius. Autonomously execute on broad and/or ambiguous requirements from internal engineering, the 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 and hardware-in-the-loop simulations at Anduril HQ to flight test events and demonstrations at test sites. Demonstrate extreme ownership of all pieces of work; become a trusted partner to Anduril’s engineers and product leaders. Partner deeply with engineering leaders to drive successful program execution and team velocity across groups of software teams and more broadly across departments. Be an effective proxy in program and organizational matters to help engineering leads scale. Ensure that the organization’s technical roadmap is well understood and that programs and staffing are aligned with the roadmap. 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 and resolve systemic execution issues across the team or group that require broader initiatives to resolve. Partner with engineering and product leads to scope, staff, and deliver capabilities to achieve company milestones. Identify, resolve, and elevate key cross team dependencies. Support leads with quarterly and ongoing staffing plans across the organization, particularly where difficult prioritization conflicts exist. Collaborate closely with other partner teams, such as hardware, product, and test operations as needed. Track and communicate the progress of the team or group’s key programs. Define efficient processes for communicating group program status more broadly. 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. Required Qualifications 2‑5 years experience as a Technical Program Manager, Technical Product Manager, Engineering Manager, or Engineer in an autonomous systems, robotics, or software development environment. A strong familiarity with robotics or computer vision systems and their architecture preferred. 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. Experience working in a rapidly iterating test environment with high levels of integration with software development teams. Strong experience in project management; practical familiarity with both Agile and Waterfall methodologies and ability to apply them where best suited. Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance. Preferred Qualifications Experience in building programs for software and testing deliverables from ground up. Ability to work within organizations with minimal structure and with minimal direction. Experience in rolling out potentially disruptive organizational process changes. Experience with creating communication plans for various levels of stakeholders. Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Strong technical, analytical and quantitative skills with the ability to use data and metrics to back up assumptions, recommendations and drive decisions. Experience with tools like JIRA and Confluence. Professional certifications such as CISSP, OSCP, GIAC‑PEN, Prosci, SAFe or PMP. Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or an Engineering discipline. Benefits Anduril offers competitive health, recovery, and other benefits, along with equity grants included in most full‑time offers. US Salary Range: $129,000 – $171,000 USD. Salary may vary based on experience, education, and business considerations. #J-18808-Ljbffr jobs.frontdoordefense.com - Jobboard