Staff Technical Program Manager – Flight Software & Autonomy

XWING; Santa Cruz (CA); On-site; USD 173,400 - 238,400; Full time

Job summary

Joby Aviation's Flight Research team seeks a Staff Technical Program Manager to own software execution across autonomy and flight software development. You will drive planning across multiple workstreams, ensuring alignment with flight test campaigns and program milestones.

You will translate high-level objectives into executable plans, manage dependencies, and keep teams focused on the highest-value work while maintaining risk-aware execution in a fast-moving environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical field.
• 8+ years in a Technical Program Manager, Technical Project Manager, or senior technical leadership role on software-intensive systems.
• Hands-on software development background or demonstrated depth in software architecture, implementation workflows, and technical risk assessment.
• Proven ability to understand complex software systems, ask high-quality technical questions, and reason about architecture, interfaces, integration, and release risk.
• Experience driving technical execution in hardware-integrated or embedded systems environments where software delivery is coupled to physical test milestones.
• Strong organizational skills with a track record of managing integrated programs across multiple concurrent technical workstreams.
• Clear, direct communicator able to translate technical plans, risks, and trade-offs for both engineering teams and program stakeholders.
• Comfortable operating in fast-moving environments where requirements and program needs evolve quickly.
• Proficiency with program management and collaboration tools such as Jira, ClickUp, Smartsheet, or similar.

Responsibilities

• Own the integrated software execution plan across programs, maintaining a clear view of workstreams, dependencies, milestones, technical risks, and critical path.
• Partner with software engineering leads to decompose high-level program objectives into actionable engineering work with clear priorities, owners, and acceptance criteria.
• Drive planning and prioritization across GNC, flight software, embedded systems, simulation, GCS, and test infrastructure teams.
• Apply technical judgment to identify unrealistic plans, missing dependencies, ambiguous requirements, and integration risks before they become blockers.
• Define and continuously improve lightweight program management processes adapted to the team's pace and needs, increasing execution velocity without adding overhead.
• Track and communicate schedule risks, blockers, and technical trade-offs to engineering leadership and program management. Surface problems early and own resolution.
• Manage cross-team dependencies at the boundary between software development, hardware, systems engineering, and flight test.
• Lead the software design-implementation-release lifecycle in collaboration with engineering leads, including design reviews, implementation sequencing, integration readiness, and release planning.
• Own flight test campaign planning from the software side, ensuring deliverables are technically scoped, scheduled, tested, and tracked against test objectives.
• Keep the team organized around priorities, commitments, decision records, and follow-through so engineers can execute with clarity.

Skills

Software architecture understanding

Technical questioning

Cross-functional leadership

Organizational skills

Communication

Jira/ClickUp/Smartsheet

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering/CS

Tools

Jira

ClickUp

Smartsheet

Job description

Joby Aviation's Flight Research team seeks a Staff Technical Program Manager to own software execution across autonomy and flight software development. You will drive planning across multiple workstreams, ensuring alignment with flight test campaigns and program milestones.

You will translate high-level objectives into executable plans, manage dependencies, and keep teams focused on the highest-value work while maintaining risk-aware execution in a fast-moving environment.