Senior Program Manager, Payload and Space Systems

BlackSky; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical

Dental

Vision

Disability insurance

401(k) matching

PTO

Job summary

BlackSky is seeking a Senior Program Manager to lead payload and space systems development in Seattle, with hybrid work options and some Tukwila testing support. You will manage cross-functional teams, vendors, and schedules to optimize cost, schedule, and performance while delivering robust satellite capabilities.

Ideal candidates bring engineering PM experience with complex hardware/software systems and a proven track record of milestone reviews, risk management, and supplier collaboration in

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in an engineering discipline or equivalent experience.
• Eight years of direct Project Management experience or related experience.
• Experience working complex systems with hardware and integrated software dependencies.
• Experience working with vendors and highly integrated MS project schedule reporting.
• Experience working with integrated product teams.
• Ability and willingness to travel up to 10% to support supplier activities and testing.

Responsibilities

• Support vendor management, trade study development, risk and program tracking for key subsystem development of the satellite prioritizing payload and satellite cross link systems.
• Develop and maintain relationships with suppliers for emerging technologies.
• Interface with the engineering teams to evaluate compliance to the specification and opportunities to improve the subsystem to business benefit.
• Track action items and schedules across engineering teams including maintaining accurate logs of vendor discussions and decision points.
• Drive technical communications with vendors and internal teams shaping the development framework to support integrated product solutions.
• Shepherd the engineering team through key milestone reviews including Preliminary Design, Critical Design and Test Readiness.
• Support the entire development lifecycle for optimization and identify design and decision gates along with developing the associated criteria.
• Track action items and schedules across engineering teams, including maintaining accurate logs of design release status.
• Coordinate with the procurement team to hand off new developments ready for stable production delivery cadences.
• Shepherd the engineering team through milestone reviews including Preliminary Design, Critical Design, Test Readiness, and early production deliveries, as well as launch readiness review.
• Manage reports and support development of standard documentation with respect to payload system qualification and flight testing to support internal business targets.
• Interface with the full system level schedule and identify key milestones to manage risk.
• Facilitate and become an expert in satellite system testing including developing training material and hand off to production.

Skills

Project management

Vendor management

MS Project

Cross-functional collaboration

Risk management

Scheduling

Hardware/Software integration

Travel readiness

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or equivalent

Tools

MS Project

Engineering data tools

Job description

Senior Program Manager, Payload and Space Systems

About Us:

BlackSky is a real-time intelligence company. We own and operate the world's most advanced space-based intelligence platform and provide customers satellite imagery, automated analytics and high-frequency monitoring of strategic locations, economic assets, and events from around the globe. BlackSky is trusted by the most demanding allied military and intelligence organizations and commercial companies to deliver foresight into critical matters that affect national security and the economy. BlackSky's data enables governments and businesses to see, understand and anticipate change as it happens, giving them the ultimate strategic advantage so they can act quickly. Our global team works with cutting-edge technology to make a difference around the world and prides itself on being people-first, customer-focused and fun. BlackSky is looking for a program manager that will support our payload development and performance verification. This position represents a critical portion of larger engineering and spacecraft design portfolio, inclusive of managing vendors, perform, highlight and communicate trades to internal and customer stakeholders, challenging the assumptions of cost, schedule and performance to optimize for BlackSky’s business needs. This position spans a broad skillset of ability to manage hardware and test assets, support, execute and document testing and results, tracking program schedule, risk and system performance, review and distill data for team consumption and action. The ideal candidate has demonstrated the ability to manage their own efforts over a broad scope of work as an independent contributor, while forging solutions and risk mitigations from a set of critical constraints. This candidate looks for problems and areas where process, support, and technical understanding can be used to find better and more efficient design and development solutions. This position will be based out of our Seattle office with the option to support a hybrid schedule 2 days per week. Some time in our manufacturing facility in Tukwila is also expected to support testing timelines.

Responsibilities:

• Support vendor management, trade study development, risk and program tracking for key subsystem development of the satellite prioritizing payload and satellite cross link systems.
• Develop and maintain relationships with suppliers for emerging technologies.
• Interface with the engineering teams to evaluate compliance to the specification and opportunities to improve the subsystem to business benefit.
• Track action items and schedules across engineering teams including maintaining accurate logs of vendor discussions and decision points.
• Drive technical communications with vendors and internal teams shaping the development framework to support integrated product solutions.
• Shepard the engineering team through key milestone reviews including but not limited to Preliminary Design, Critical Design and Test Readiness.
• Support the entire development lifecycle for optimization and identify design and decision gates along with the developing the associated criteria.
• Track action items and schedules across engineering teams, including maintaining accurate logs of design release status.
• Coordinate with the procurement team to hand off new developments ready for stable production delivery cadences.
• Shepard the engineering team through key milestone reviews including, but not limited to, Preliminary Design, Critical Design, Test Readiness, and early production deliveries, as well as launch readiness review.
• Manage reports and support development of standard documentation with respect to payload system qualification and flight testing to support our internal business targets.
• Interface with the full system level schedule and identify key milestones to manage risk.
• Facilitate and become an expert in satellite system testing including developing training material for other team members and longer term hand off to production.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in an engineering discipline or equivalent experience
• Eight years of direct Project Management Experience or related experience
• Experience working complex systems with hardware and integrated software dependencies
• Experience working with vendors and highly integrated MS project schedule reporting
• Experience working with integrated product teams
• Highly skilled at managing schedules with critical dependencies and requirements or system engineering
• Ability and willingness to travel up to 10% to support supplier activities and testing

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with aerospace systems
• Possess strong team leadership and inter-team cooperation and organization skills
• Experience presenting information to external customers a plus
• Hardware and test lab experience a plus

Life at BlackSky for full-time benefits-eligible employees includes:

• Medical
• dental
• vision
• disability
• group term life and AD&D
• voluntary life and AD&D insurance
• BlackSky pays 100% of employee-only premiums for medical, dental and vision and contributes $100/month for out-of-pocket expenses!
• 15 days of PTO
• 11 Company holidays
• four Floating Holidays (pro-rated based on hire date)
• one day of paid volunteerism leave per year
• parental leave and more
• 401(k) pre-tax and Roth deferral options with employer match
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Employee Assistance and Travel Assistance Programs
• Employer matching donations
• Professional development
• Awesome swag

Salary

The anticipated salary range for Senior level candidates in Washington State is $130,000 - 150,000 per year. The final compensation package offered to a successful candidate will be dependent on specific background and education. BlackSky is a multi-state employer, and this pay scale may not reflect salary ranges in other states or locations outside of Washington state.

Equal Employment Opportunity

BlackSky is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Eligibility / USIT Acquisition Compliance

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

EEO/ Pay Transparency Statements

https://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/eeopost.pdf

https://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/OFCCP_EEO_Supplement_Final_JRF_QA_508c.pdf