Principal Technical Program Manager, MMA

Shield; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Shield in San Diego seeks a senior principal TPM to lead integrated execution for the U.S. Air Force MMA program, translating customer objectives into technical plans across concept work, prototyping, flight test, and production readiness.

The role requires coordinating multiple engineering disciplines and ensuring milestones align with cost, reusability, and manufacturability targets. You will drive program baselines, balance trade-offs, and steer cross-functional teams toward on-time delivery

Qualifications

• Principal-level program leadership experience on complex aerospace or autonomous systems.
• Ability to manage customer commitments, partner dependencies, schedule, cost, and technical risk.
• Enough engineering depth to challenge assumptions and resolve cross-functional trade-offs.
• Clear executive communication on milestone confidence, risk, and program health.

Responsibilities

• Establish the program baseline across engineering deliverables, hardware availability, integration, test, suppliers, and customer milestones.
• Translate evolving customer needs into scope, priorities, and verification milestones.
• Coordinate air vehicle, propulsion, avionics, flight controls, autonomy, mission systems, and ground systems work.
• Keep cost, reuse, modularity, manufacturing readiness, and sustainment visible in execution decisions.

Skills

Principal program leadership

Customer commitments & risk

Cross-functional trade-offs

Executive communication

Job description

What the role actually is

This principal TPM role leads integrated execution for aircraft development work supporting the U.S. Air Force MMA program. The role translates customer objectives into technical plans across concept work, mission systems, prototype demonstration, flight test, and production readiness.

What you would work on

• Establish the program baseline across engineering deliverables, hardware availability, integration, test, suppliers, and customer milestones
• Translate evolving customer needs into scope, success criteria, priorities, and verification milestones
• Coordinate air vehicle, propulsion, avionics, flight controls, autonomy, mission systems, and ground systems work
• Keep cost, reuse, modularity, manufacturing readiness, and sustainment visible in execution decisions

What they are asking for

• Principal-level program leadership experience on complex aerospace or autonomous systems
• Ability to manage customer commitments, partner dependencies, schedule, cost, and technical risk
• Enough engineering depth to challenge assumptions and resolve cross-functional trade-offs
• Clear executive communication on milestone confidence, risk, and program health

Why this one is worth a look

This is a senior execution role at the edge of defense autonomy and aircraft productization. The caveat is that it is not a classic software product manager role; it is for someone who wants high-stakes program ownership where customer needs, mission systems, autonomy, and manufacturing readiness all collide.