Senior Program Manager, Test Execution

AURORA; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 145,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Equity compensation

Hybrid work environment

Job summary

Aurora in Pittsburgh is seeking a Senior Program Manager, Test Execution (Weekend) for on-site coverage Thursday through Monday across Development Testing Operations. You will serve as the single point of contact for weekend workstreams and escalate as needed.

This role emphasizes building playbooks, decision authority, and cross-team triage, ensuring plans stay on track when the weekday team is offline. Ideal candidates have 5+ years in PM/Operations and strong communication.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in Program Management or related roles.
• Ability to operate independently without full weekday team access.
• Experience across engineering/test workstreams and unfamiliar issues.
• Understanding of hardware/software stacks affecting vehicle behavior.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Safety-focused mindset with on-site work capability.
• Willing to work Thursday-Monday on-site schedule.
• Adaptability in fast-paced, evolving environments.
• Capable of hands-on, improvisational decision-making with incomplete information.

Responsibilities

• Serve as escalation point for weekend PMs, coordinating with Eng/Safety/Ops/leadership.
• Own and execute pre-built response playbooks and flag gaps.
• Define and follow a decision-authority matrix; escalate appropriately.
• Make real-time resource substitutions and adjust test sequencing.
• Support test execution questions across all engineering areas.
• Review plan vs actual and write weekly status report.
• Recommend pivots to upcoming week's plan based on results.
• Track blockers/delays and communicate to stakeholders.
• Maintain documentation of weekend decisions for continuity.
• Contribute to a living contingency playbook after weekends.

Skills

Independent decision-making

Cross-workstream understanding

Engineering/test workstreams knowledge

Hardware/software understanding

Strong communication

Safety-focused

Weekend on-site coverage

Job description

Who we are

Aurora’s mission is to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly.

The Aurora Driver will create a new era in mobility and logistics, one that will bring a safer, more efficient, and more accessible future to everyone.

At Aurora, you will tackle massively complex problems alongside other passionate, intelligent individuals, growing as an expert while expanding your knowledge. For the latest news from Aurora, visit aurora.tech or follow us on LinkedIn.

What we are looking for

Aurora hires talented people with diverse backgrounds who are ready to help build a transportation ecosystem that will make our roads safer, get crucial goods where they need to go, and make mobility more efficient and accessible for all.

We’re searching for a Senior Program Manager, Test Execution (Weekend). Aurora's Product Operations team plays a critical role in turning development priorities into safe, executable testing outcomes. This role provides dedicated weekend and adjacent-day (Thursday - Monday) on-site coverage across all Development Testing Operations work-streams, ensuring engineering teams have consistent program management support.

This Program Manager acts as the single point of contact for all assigned engineering areas during the weekend window, standing in for the full team of workstream PMs. You are the first line of defense for test execution questions and escalations, the direct escalation point for on-site issues, and the bridge to leadership when problems can't be resolved.

This is functionally an irregular-operations (IROPs) role: the weekday team builds the plan, and you deliver it. The job isn't to wait for direction; it's to develop and work a known set of playbooks, make the call within defined limits, and know exactly when to pick up the phone to escalat.

This role requires breadth over depth: rather than owning a single engineering relationship, you need working fluency across all the workstreams the team supports so you can triage confidently on your own during the window when the rest of the team is offline.

In This Role, You Will

• Serve as the direct escalation point for all Program Managers' workstreams during the Saturday-Sunday coverage window, resolving first-tier test execution questions and issues and looping in the right people (Engineering, Safety, Operations, leadership) when they exceed first-tier scope.

• Own and execute pre-built response playbooks and flag gaps in those playbooks back to the weekday teams

• Define and work within a decision-authority matrix: know without checking which calls you're empowered to make solo, which need a same-day heads-up to leadership, and which require an immediate escalation before proceeding.

• Make real-time, hands-on calls on resource substitution - reassigning available assets, adjusting test sequencing, or re-routing around a blocked track/route - to keep the weekend plan moving without waiting for Monday.

• Support test execution questions and escalations across the full breadth of engineering areas the team covers, not just a single workstream.

• Review the previous week's plan against actual execution and author the weekly status/summary report on how the week went

• Recommend and make pivots to the upcoming week's plan based on weekend execution results, blockers, and on-the-ground changes (weather, asset downtime, route/track issues).

• Track and communicate blockers, delays, and anomalies to stakeholders in a timely manner, using judgment on when an issue needs to go straight to leadership versus being resolved at the PM level.

• Maintain clear documentation of weekend decisions, pivots, and escalations so the Monday - Friday team has full continuity into the new week.

• Contribute to a living contingency playbook: after each weekend, document any novel failure mode encountered and the resolution

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in Program Management, Project Management, Product Operations, Technical Operations, or a related role.

• Demonstrated ability to operate independently and make sound first-tier decisions without real-time access to the full weekday team or leadership.

• Working knowledge across multiple engineering/test workstreams, with the ability to quickly get oriented on unfamiliar issues.

• Ability to develop a functional understanding of hardware/software stacks, including how sensors, calibration, and software versions interact to impact vehicle behavior.

• Strong organizational and written/verbal communication skills, with comfort producing clear status reports and escalating to leadership when needed.

• Safety focused, with the ability to operate effectively in environments where safety is a core requirement.

• Required to work a Thursday - Monday schedule, including weekend on-site presence.

• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, evolving environment with shifting priorities and incomplete information.

• Comfortable making resourceful, hands-on calls under incomplete information - improvising a workaround, reallocating an available asset, or adjusting a test sequence in the moment rather than escalating by default.

Desirable Qualifications

• Experience covering or backstopping multiple PM workstreams simultaneously, or prior experience in a "floating" or on-call operational role.

• Proven experience managing relationships and expectations with senior leadership, escalating appropriately without over- or under-escalating.

• Comfort using basic data, dashboards, or reporting to support prioritization and execution decisions.

• Experience in autonomous vehicles, automotive, robotics, logistics, or similarly complex operational environments.

The base salary range for this position is$100,000 - $145,000 peryear. Aurora’s pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, the successful candidate’s starting base pay will be determined based on factors including job-related skills, experience, qualifications, relevant education or training, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future. The successful candidate will also be eligible for an annual bonus, equity compensation, and benefits.

Working at Aurora

At Aurora, we bring together extraordinarily talented and experienced people united by the strength of our values. We operate with integrity, set outrageous goals, and build a culture where we win together - all without any jerks.

We believe in-person work increases collaboration, empathy and our ability to lead effectively. As a result, we operate in a hybrid work environment where Aurorans are in office at least 3 days per week.

Our Careers page provides insight into what it is like to work at Aurora, and you can find all the latest updates in our Newsroom.

Our commitment to safety

At the core of everything we do is our commitment to safety. Building best-in-class self-driving technology will take time, and we believe that each employee at Aurora has a role in contributing to safety, every step of the way. Aurora expects commitment to our safety policies from every employee, and seeks candidates who take an active responsibility, can contribute to building an atmosphere of trust, and invest in the organization’s long-term success by prioritizing working safely, no matter what.

Our commitment to inclusion

Aurora considers candidates without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy status, parent or caregiver status, ancestry, political affiliation, veteran and/or military status, physical or mental disability, or any other status protected by federal or state law. Aurora considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law. We are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [e-mail].

For California applicants, information collected and processed as part of your application and any job applications you choose to submit is subject to Aurora’s California Employment Privacy Policy.