Director, Program Management, Air Systems

Red Cat Holdings; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 176,000 - 205,000; Full time

Job summary

Red Cat Holdings seeks a Director of Program Management for ASR’s air systems to own requirements, test strategy, and cross‑functional program execution. You will coordinate with engineering, product, and field teams to ensure reliable, well‑specified systems delivered on time.

You will drive test strategy across SITL/HITL and real-flight testing, align dependencies in Jira, and manage program events and demonstrations while maintaining margin targets and customer focus.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in program management, product management, systems engineering, or test and evaluation.
• Demonstrated experience owning product requirements for hardware or hardware-plus-software products.
• Experience developing and executing test plans across SITL, HITL, and live flight or field testing.
• Experience owning program or event execution with cost, revenue, or margin outcomes.
• Strong cross-functional leadership across software, electrical, mechanical, and manufacturing teams.
• Rigorous change management and documentation with pragmatism to move quickly.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including briefing executive leadership.
• Working technical fluency with unmanned air systems, autonomy, or similar complex engineered systems.
• Ability to work independently with limited oversight.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end execution of paid events and demonstrations, establishing integrated plans spanning scope, schedule, milestones, dependencies, and budget, with direct accountability for event-level cost, revenue, and gross-margin performance.
• Own test strategy and execution across the full development lifecycle for current and future air systems, including SITL, HITL, ground, and flight-test environments.
• Coordinate cross-functional test execution across DevSecOps, Electrical, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Engineering to ensure comprehensive coverage.
• Develop, own, and publish product requirements documents and roadmaps for ASR’s air systems, serving as the voice of the customer.
• Decompose ambiguous requirements into concrete specifications and drive execution through the full lifecycle.
• Serve as coordination point with Red Cat’s global product management and manage cross-platform dependencies in Jira.
• Establish auditable change-management and requirements-traceability processes.
• Capture and distill feedback from customers and partners to identify new business opportunities and roadmap inputs.
• Lead program reviews, surface risks, and communicate mitigations to executive leadership.
• Build and mature program-management processes, tooling, and standards to scale ASR’s air-systems portfolio.

Job description

Job Details

Job Location: Apium - San Diego, CA 92121

Salary Range: $176,000.00 - $205,000.00

Position Summary

Apium Swarm Robotics (ASR) is revolutionizing swarm autonomy software for air, surface, undersea, and ground vehicles operating across dual‑use commercial and defense environments. Our systems are deployed on real platforms, tested in the field, and delivered to customers operating in complex, uncertain, and safety‑critical conditions.

We do not build research prototypes or slideware. Our software is integrated into real vehicles, tested in the field, and delivered to customers who depend on operational reliability, speed of execution, and mission relevance. We prioritize performance over hype.

ASR systems represent the next phase in autonomy: collaborative swarming. These are not like pre‑programmed drones for light shows. We are creating real‑time cooperative management that lets one operator control dozens to hundreds of vehicles in real‑time with the ease of controlling a single vehicle. As such, this role requires comfort with responsibility, ambiguity, and operational accountability.

ASR seeks a Director of Program Management for Air Systems to own the execution, requirements, and test strategy behind Apium’s family of unmanned air systems. This is a senior, cross‑functional leadership role that sits at the intersection of product management, test and evaluation, and program and event execution — accountable for making sure ASR’s air systems are well‑specified, exhaustively tested, and delivered through events and demonstrations that meet both mission and margin objectives.

On the product side, you will own the product requirements documentation for all of ASR’s air systems — working with ASR leadership to ensure requirements reflect company vision and customer expectations, and are detailed enough to be actioned directly by the engineering team. On the test side, you will develop and own the test strategy for current and future air systems across software and hardware, spanning software‑in‑the‑loop (SITL), hardware‑in‑the‑loop (HITL), and real‑world flight testing, partnering with DevSecOps, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Manufacturing to ensure coverage across all modalities.

On the program side, you will own execution of both paid events and strategic demonstrations, tracking cost and revenue at the event level to ensure gross profit margin targets are met. You will also serve as ASR’s coordination point with Red Cat’s global product management organization, documenting and tracking Apium’s dependencies on other Red Cat air platforms and tying them together in Jira so that cross‑program commitments are visible and managed.

This position is an individual contributor at the director level today, with an explicit pathway to build a program management team as ASR scales. The right candidate is comfortable operating strategically — owning requirements, test strategy, and margin accountability at a functional level — while personally executing the work and building the processes the next several hires will inherit. Travel may be required for events, demonstrations, and flight testing.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Own end‑to‑end execution of paid events and strategic demonstrations, establishing integrated plans spanning scope, schedule, milestones, dependencies, and budget, with direct accountability for event‑level cost, revenue, and gross‑margin performance
• Own test strategy and execution across the full development lifecycle for current and future air systems, including system‑level verification and validation, test phasing, and prioritization across SITL, HITL, ground, and flight‑test environments
• Coordinate cross‑functional test execution across DevSecOps, Electrical, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Engineering to ensure comprehensive coverage of every hardware and software modality, managing test readiness and risk at each gate
• Develop, own, and publish product requirements documents and roadmaps for ASR’s air systems, serving as the voice of the customer and translating operational needs and leadership vision into a prioritized product direction
• Decompose ambiguous, complex requirements into concrete, engineering‑actionable specifications, partnering hands‑on with engineering to scope features and drive execution through the full product lifecycle
• Serve as ASR’s coordination point with Red Cat’s global product management organization, documenting and actively managing cross‑platform dependencies and interlocking commitments in Jira
• Establish disciplined, auditable change‑management and requirements‑traceability processes that remain responsive to short‑horizon, high‑priority business needs
• Capture and distill feedback from customers and partners to identify new business development and product‑offering opportunities, feeding them into ASR’s product roadmap and growth strategy
• Establish and lead a consistent cadence of program reviews, surfacing critical‑path risks, bottlenecks, and mitigation options to executive leadership
• Build and mature the program‑management processes, tooling, and documentation standards that will scale as ASR’s air‑systems portfolio grows

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in program management, product management, systems engineering, or test and evaluation, including demonstrated ownership of a function or major program
• Demonstrated experience owning product requirements for a hardware or hardware‑plus‑software product, from vision through engineering‑actionable specification
• Demonstrated experience developing and executing test plans across simulation and real‑world environments, ideally including SITL, HITL, and live flight or field testing
• Experience owning program or event execution with direct accountability for cost, revenue, or margin outcomes
• Strong cross‑functional leadership skills, with a track record coordinating software, electrical, mechanical, and manufacturing teams toward a shared delivery
• Rigorous approach to change management and documentation, balanced with the pragmatism to move quickly on high‑priority business needs
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to brief executive leadership and translate between technical teams and business stakeholders
• Working technical fluency with unmanned air systems, autonomy, or comparable complex engineered systems — sufficient to earn the trust of engineering teams
• Comfort working independently with limited oversight
• Ability to remain calm and effective under operational pressure
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