Senior Satellite Production Program Manager

Rocket Lab Corporation; Long Beach (CA); On-site; USD 125,000 - 188,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Employee stock purchase program

Comprehensive health plans

Job summary

Rocket Lab’s Long Beach, CA headquarters hosts a Senior Program Manager I responsible for high‑volume satellite production from concept to flight, owning rate, yield, and unit cost with strategic program decisions under pressure.

You will lead multiple programs, coordinate with Chief Engineers, and drive manufacturability and margin improvements, while building future leaders in a fast‑paced space company with strong compensation and benefits.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in physics, math, science, or other technical discipline.
• 5+ years of program management experience.
• A demonstrated track record of owning a technical program, product, or team end to end and carrying it across the finish line under real pressure.
• Evidence you've moved real hardware and software from prototype toward high-rate production, with quantified yield, throughput, and cost gains.
• Understanding of takt time, line‑of‑balance, design‑for‑manufacturing, and learning‑curve economics.
• Experience identifying tooling, supply‑chain, or yield risk and neutralizing it before it slows the line.
• U.S. citizenship with ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Command the Lifecycle: Build and lead the team that takes satellites at high volume from a “blank sheet” concept through qualification, full‑rate production, and flight, and own the technical roadmap that grows the team's core capabilities.
• Lead the Team of Teams: Run multiple active programs at once, make sound architectural calls with Chief Engineers, navigate the hardest trade-offs in design‑for‑manufacturing, takt time, line‑of‑balance, and rate‑readiness versus reliability.
• Build the Bench: Grow a culture where strong people take smart, healthy risks and the best idea wins, no matter who it comes from, we back bold calls and treat an intelligent miss as the cost of moving fast and coach and develop the next generation of program and team leaders.
• Forge the Supply Chain: Manage high‑stakes subcontracts and suppliers as strategic partners essential to the mission, protecting schedule and margin.
• Unblock Excellence: Synchronize cross‑functional teams across manufacturing, supply chain, integration, and test and clear roadblocks quickly so the team keeps moving at speed and quality stays high.
• Influence the Future: Serve as the primary point of contact for assigned commercial constellation operators, and partner with BD & Strategy on proposals and technical narratives that define the next generation of constellation production.

Skills

Program management

Leadership

System architecture

Design-for-manufacturing

Troubleshooting

Security clearance

Education

Bachelor’s degree in physics/math/science/technical discipline

Master’s degree in Engineering/Operations or related field

Tools

Jira

Confluence

ERP/MRP

Job description

Rocket Lab’s Long Beach, CA headquarters hosts a Senior Program Manager I responsible for high‑volume satellite production from concept to flight, owning rate, yield, and unit cost with strategic program decisions under pressure.

You will lead multiple programs, coordinate with Chief Engineers, and drive manufacturability and margin improvements, while building future leaders in a fast‑paced space company with strong compensation and benefits.