Defense Program Manager — Space & Missile Systems

Karman Space & Defense; Huntington Beach (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid time off

HSA with company contribution

FSA

Company-paid life and AD&D insurance

Short- and long-term disability

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

Karman Space & Defense is seeking an experienced Program Manager to lead complex defense programs from planning through delivery, ensuring cost, schedule, technical, quality, and customer objectives are met.

You will coordinate cross-functional teams across engineering, operations, quality, supply chain, contracts, and finance, serving as a primary customer interface while managing risks and driving program success in the U.S. defense sector.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science degree in engineering, business program management, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and directly relevant experience.
• 5 or more years of experience supporting or managing aerospace, defense, advanced manufacturing, or similarly complex technical programs.
• Preferred: MS degree or MBA, PMP certification, and DoD/ government program experience.

Responsibilities

• Leads assigned programs through planning, development, qualification, production, delivery, and contract completion.
• Owns performance against cost, schedule, technical, quality, contractual, and customer objectives.
• Develops and maintains integrated program plans, schedules, budgets, milestones, resource requirements, and performance metrics.
• Coordinates cross-functional execution across engineering, operations, quality, supply chain, contracts, finance, and test.
• Serves as a primary interface for customers, prime contractors, government stakeholders, suppliers, and internal leadership.
• Identifies programmatic, technical, supply-chain, cost, and schedule risks and drives mitigation and recovery plans.
• Leads recurring program reviews and communicates financial performance, risks, decisions, dependencies, and corrective actions.
• Supports design reviews, test-readiness reviews, qualification activities, production-readiness reviews, and customer acceptance events.
• Manages contractual deliverables, statements of work, program changes, customer requests, and scope changes.
• Supports proposals, estimates, contract negotiations, follow-on opportunities, and program-growth activities.

Skills

Program management

Cross-functional leadership

Risk management

Customer interface

EVM familiarity

Education

Bachelor of Science in Engineering or related field

Master's degree or MBA (preferred)

PMP certification (preferred)

Tools

EVM (Earned Value Management)

ERP systems

PLM systems

Scheduling tools

Job description

Karman Space & Defense is seeking an experienced Program Manager to lead complex defense programs from planning through delivery, ensuring cost, schedule, technical, quality, and customer objectives are met.

You will coordinate cross-functional teams across engineering, operations, quality, supply chain, contracts, and finance, serving as a primary customer interface while managing risks and driving program success in the U.S. defense sector.