Product Manager, Spacecraft Platforms

Apex; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 155,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in Apex

Company-paid healthcare

PTO 15-20 days + holidays

Job summary

Apex seeks a Product Manager to own the product definition for our spacecraft platforms and the mission services built around them. You will define configurations, interfaces, and block upgrades to keep the platform standard while meeting market needs, collaborating across engineering, mission integration, supply chain, and business development.

You will work directly with customers to translate needs into requirements, manage tradeoffs across cost, schedule, and performance, and help decide

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of experience in product management or technical product ownership for complex hardware or hardware-software systems.
• Experience taking a hardware product from requirements through production and customer delivery.
• Experience in satellite manufacturing or related industries (aerospace, defense, or high-tech).
• Strong technical understanding of spacecraft or other complex hardware systems.
• Experience owning a product roadmap and making tradeoffs across cost, schedule, performance, and customer needs.
• Experience working directly with customers and turning their needs into clear product requirements.
• Strong communication skills, including presenting to executives and customers.
• Ability to make good decisions with incomplete information in a fast-paced environment.
• Willingness to travel as needed for customer meetings and site visits.
• U.S. Person status, as this position needs access to export-controlled data.

Responsibilities

• Own the product roadmap for the spacecraft platform, including current and next-generation platforms and the block upgrades between them.
• Define platform requirements, standard interfaces, and the configurations offered to customers, and protect the platform from one-off changes that add NRE or slow production.
• Own the mission services offering around the platform, including integration support, software, communications, ground, and operations, and define what is included in each package.
• Work with customers and Business Development to understand needs across defense, intelligence, communications, sensing, science, and commercial markets, and turn them into product requirements.
• Select the customer requests that become platform changes, configurable options, or services, and help decide which missions Apex should pursue.
• Partner with Mission Integration to make sure payload-side needs are met without changing the platform, and use what we learn from each mission to improve the product.
• Work with engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, and test to make sure product decisions can be built at production rate and cost targets.
• Bring lessons from Apex testbed and flight vehicles back into the platform through block upgrades.
• Support pricing and packaging with Finance and Business Development, and track price-performance against targets.
• Write and maintain product specifications and customer-facing product documentation, such as datasheets and standard interface documents.
• Track the competitive landscape, including other platform providers and vertically integrated constellations, and bring it into product decisions.
• Define and track product success metrics, and communicate roadmap, priorities, and tradeoffs to leadership.

Skills

Product roadmap

Cross-functional collaboration

Requirements gathering

Trade-off analysis

Customer engagement

Stakeholder communication

Travel readiness

US Person status

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering

Job description

Apex seeks a Product Manager to own the product definition for our spacecraft platforms and the mission services built around them. You will define configurations, interfaces, and block upgrades to keep the platform standard while meeting market needs, collaborating across engineering, mission integration, supply chain, and business development.

You will work directly with customers to translate needs into requirements, manage tradeoffs across cost, schedule, and performance, and help decide