Technical Program Manager, PMO

Front Door Defense; Santa Ana, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 166,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity grants

Competitive benefits

Job summary

Anduril Industries in Santa Ana, CA, is seeking a Technical Program Manager to lead subsea robotics initiatives within our growing Program Management Office. You will collaborate with product, engineering, logistics, and operations to align initiatives with strategy and secure the right resources.

The role requires hands-on technical leadership, cross-functional partnership, and the ability to translate complex concepts into executable plans.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in technical project management and/or systems engineering
• Proven success leading NPI teams and scaling hardware to high-rate production
• Hands-on experience with MES and PDM software
• Experience balancing timelines, budgets, and resources using first-principles
• Extremely organized with excellent communication skills
• Must be a U.S. Person due to access to export-controlled information
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret clearance

Responsibilities

• Technical Ownership: oversee system performance, incident response, and metrics-driven improvements
• Project Planning: define scope, track risks, build schedules, manage changes
• New Product Integration: lead NPI to ensure end-to-end systems integration and manufacturing readiness
• Cross Functional Partnership: collaborate with Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality and Manufacturing
• Contract Management: support statements of work, change orders, and data rights
• Autonomous Execution: own broad requirements and partner with engineers

Skills

Technical Program Management

NPI leadership

MES experience

PDM experience

First-principles problem solving

Strong communication

Organized

US Person

Tools

MES software

PLM/ERP tools

Job description

Location: Santa Ana, California

Compensation: $166,000 - 220,000 USD / year

About The Role

Technical Program Manager

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century's most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril's family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

About The Job

We are seeking our next Technical Program Manager to join our emerging Program Management Office in Santa Ana, CA, working in a cutting-edge start-up environment to advance the state-of-the-possible in subsea robotics. Working across product, engineering, business development, logistics, and operations, you must be a technical leader with the expertise to evaluate, qualify, manage, and advocate for an increasing number of sophisticated parallel pursuits.

This role is crucial in ensuring that each initiative aligns with the company's strategic direction and receives the appropriate resourcing, balancing innovation with practical execution to drive this novel business line's success. You will be required to learn technical concepts and employ them quickly. You will be expected to use your technical knowledge in conjunction with your program management skills to lead cross-functional efforts and deliver exceptional outcomes.

What You'll Do

• Technical Ownership: Drive technical outcomes through meticulous understanding of system performance, managing incident response and after-action, using metrics to derive insights into areas for improvement, quantifying the improvements made through investment in those areas, and maintaining a clear understanding of the state of the system that can be communicated to the customer.
• Project Planning: Develop project scope and manage changes through the life of the project. Identify, track, and manage project risks. Generate and maintain project schedules. Ensure successful execution of programs in accordance with desired requirements, on schedule, and on budget.
• New Product Integration: Lead NPI teams to ensure the end-to-end systems integration and manufacturing readiness of new products through to sustained high-rate production ensuring processes, work instructions, test coverage, and tooling are mature enough to rapidly scale complex hardware products. Design, implement, and continuously improve a standardized NPI knowledge transfer framework, including checklists, templates, communication plans, and stage-gate reviews.
• Cross Functional Partnership: Deeply embed with the Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality and Manufacturing teams from early development through the initial production run to gain expert-level product and process knowledge.
• Contract Management: Provide contract management support including statements of work, change orders, financial management, terms and conditions, data rights assertions, etc. Manage deliverables, including routine status updates and final delivery to the customer.
• Autonomous Execution: Autonomously execute on broad and/or ambiguous requirements from internal and external clients. Demonstrate high ownership on all pieces of work. Become a trusted partner to Anduril's engineers.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience specifically in technical project management and/or systems engineering, or related project management and/or systems engineering experience in a relevant industry.
• Demonstrated success leading NPI teams and scaling multiple complex hardware products into high-rate production.
• Hands‑on experience with Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and Product Data Management (PDM) software.
• Proven track record using first-principles problem‑solving to balance aggressive timelines, budgets, and resource allocation in a fast-paced environment.
• Extremely organized and detail oriented with exceptional communication skills.
• Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export‑controlled information or facilities.
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience in maritime, naval, or aerospace defense, with knowledge of NAVSEA or MIL‑SPEC standards.
• Experience with MES and ERP systems for production and material planning: working with JIRA, Siemens NX, Teamcenter (PLM), or Oracle or equivalents.
• Background in supply chain and/or procurement in a high-rate production environment producing large finished electromechanical goods.
• Hands‑on technical credibility having personally built, debugged, or repaired hardware in a production environment, and is comfortable being on the floor with technicians as the default operating mode.
• Technical foundation in mechanical assembly, electrical integration, heavy metal or composite fabrication, or precision machining.

US Salary Range $166,000 —$220,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top‑tier benefits for full‑time employees, including:

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you're supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.

Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams

Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.

To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:

• No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.
• Please always verify communications:
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  • Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to [e-mail].
• Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach: If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.
• What to Do If You Suspect Fraud: Should you encounter any questionable or fraudulent outreach claiming to be from Anduril, please report it immediately to [e-mail]. Your proactive caution is invaluable in protecting your personal information and upholding the security and trustworthiness of our recruitment efforts.

Data Privacy

To view Anduril's candidate data privacy policy, please visit https://anduril.com/applicant-privacy-notice/.

By submitting your application, you consent to Anduril Industries using a third‑party service provider to conduct pre‑employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening and assessing potential risks as part of your application process. This third‑party service provider provides risk‑intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public‑record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third‑party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Use of this provider helps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and protect technology, intellectual property, and organizational security.