Technical Program Manager, Air Defense (SIP)

Title: Technical Program Manager, Air Defense (SIP) Location: Irvine, California, United States

ABOUT THE TEAM

Anduril's Air Defense team builds autonomous robots that find other robots and knock them out of the sky. This team is the nexus of premier Anduril-built products such as Roadrunner, Sentry, Anvil, Pulsar, and Wisp integrated into a software-enabled Air Defense family of systems tailored to the modern battlespace. At a time when air superiority can no longer be taken for granted, we provide critical force protection capabilities to support the warfighter. Our autonomous family of networked sensors and effectors enables our users to rapidly close the kill chain against a broad range of UAS threats that continue to evolve at a rapid pace.
Within Air Defense, our SOF integration team fields counter-UAS capability for special operations users. We integrate Anduril and third-party sensors, effectors, and C2 onto towers, vessels, vehicles, and dismounted kits, often running several task orders in parallel, each with its own milestones, partners, and test events.

ABOUT THE JOB

We're seeking a Technical Program Manager to own engineering execution across a portfolio of concurrent counter-UAS programs. Our chief engineer leads and owns the technical decisions. You own making sure those decisions turn into delivered milestones: the integrated schedule, review readiness, partner deliverables, staffing, and follow-through across every program in flight.
This is not a status-reporting role. You will run the operating rhythm of the engineering team, close loops nobody else is closing, and spot schedule and resourcing problems weeks before they become escalations. You should be technical enough to read an ICD, follow a test plan, and push back on an engineer's estimate. You should also be organized enough that leadership trusts your tracker more than their own memory.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

1. Integrated Engineering Schedule: Build and own one engineering schedule across every active program, tied to contract milestones, test events, and hardware lead times. Flag slips and cross-program conflicts early, with a recommended fix rather than just a red cell.
2. Milestone Review Readiness: Drive SRR, PDR, CDR, and test readiness reviews end to end. Define entry and exit criteria, assign and chase the inputs, assemble the package, run the review, and drive every action item to closure.
3. Partner and Subcontractor Execution: Own the technical deliverable tracking for subcontractors and integration partners. Hold partners to dates and quality, surface disagreements on scope or hours early, and keep engineering and contracts aligned on what was actually agreed.
4. Operating Rhythm: Run the team's recurring program syncs so engineering leadership can step out of them. Set agendas, capture decisions and actions, and make sure follow-ups actually happen within days, not months.
5. Staffing and Allocation: Own the team's allocation picture across programs. Keep the staffing data accurate, catch over-allocation before it burns people out, and build coverage plans for planned absences and peak test periods.
6. Upward and Customer Reporting: Produce the weekly program roll-up for engineering and business leadership, and support customer-facing status.
7. Proposals and Estimates: Support labor build-ups, ROMs, and schedules for new task orders so estimates are grounded in how the team actually executes.
8. Test Event Execution: Plan and coordinate logistics, people, hardware, and readiness for field and range test events as needed, and be on site when it matters.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ years in technical program management, systems engineering, or engineering roles on hardware/software defense, aerospace, or robotics programs
• Proven track record running DoD-style milestone reviews (SRR/PDR/CDR/TRR) or an equivalent gated engineering process
• Experience managing subcontractor or partner technical deliverables, including holding partners accountable to schedule and scope
• Experience managing multiple concurrent programs or workstreams with shared people and hardware
• Technical depth to understand system architectures, interface documents, test plans, and the software development lifecycle well enough to challenge estimates and spot risk
• Strong written communication: you can turn a messy week into a one-page roll-up a general manager reads in two minutes
• Comfortable with ambiguity and minimal structure; you build the process instead of waiting for one
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Secret clearance
• Must be able to travel up to 25% of the time

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Active Secret or higher clearance
• Experience with SOCOM, special operations, or other rapid-acquisition customers
• Counter-UAS, air defense, sensors, or C2 integration experience
• Experience supporting proposals, labor build-ups, and basis of estimates for task orders
• Experience at a fast-moving defense or hardware startup alongside traditional primes
• Hands-on with Jira, Confluence, Airtable, or similar tools, and the discipline to keep them accurate
• Bachelor's degree in an engineering or technical discipline