AI-Driven Engineering Program Lead (110-Person ART)

NCSL International; Egg Harbor Township (NJ); Hybrid; USD 131,000 - 237,000; Full time

Job summary

Leidos is seeking an Engineering Program Manager to lead the Air Traffic Business Area on the L-CAP project. This hybrid role oversees a ~110-person ART, guiding 4–6 People Managers, with responsibility for workforce design, staffing, and retention across multiple locations.

You will collaborate with RTE and Product Manager on capacity planning and budget, driving AI-enabled modernization and cloud-native transition.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years of engineering management experience.
• Experience scaling organizations of 75+ personnel in matrixed environment.
• Experience managing managers and talent development in software/systems programs.
• US citizenship and ability to obtain Public Trust clearance.

Responsibilities

• 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.

Skills

Engineering management

Leadership of managers

Workforce planning

Talent acquisition governance

Performance management

Resource allocation

Budget management

Stakeholder management

Public Trust clearance

Cloud-native modernization

AI-first mindset

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering or related field

Job description

Leidos is seeking an Engineering Program Manager to lead the Air Traffic Business Area on the L-CAP project. This hybrid role oversees a ~110-person ART, guiding 4–6 People Managers, with responsibility for workforce design, staffing, and retention across multiple locations.

You will collaborate with RTE and Product Manager on capacity planning and budget, driving AI-enabled modernization and cloud-native transition.