Senior Technical Program Manager (TPM) at Orbital Operations in Long Beach, CA

Job description

• We just won the contracts. Now we have to deliver them, and you are the person who makes that happen. As our first Technical Program Manager, you personally own execution of our funded government programs from kickoff through delivery. Cost, schedule, risk, and every deliverable the government is owed runs through you.
• You are our first dedicated program manager, which means there is no process to inherit and real room to leave your mark. You will build the scheduling, risk, and reporting infrastructure that our program management function grows from, embedded in the team and working shoulder to shoulder with our engineers, mission operations, and leadership every day, translating between the technical work and the programmatic commitments. The templates and cadences you establish become the company standard, and strong performance in this seat puts you first in line to lead the function as it grows.
• The role is technical on purpose. Our programs commit us to real engineering outcomes on a cryogenic orbital vehicle, and tracking milestones without understanding what is inside them does not work here. You will sit in design reviews, follow the technical tradeoffs, and be credible in the room with both our engineers and the customer's technical staff. To be clear on the seam, our engineers author the technical work and own the technical decisions. Your job is to be proficient enough to collaborate closely with them, synthesize their findings into program-level status the customer can act on, and connect the technical picture to cost, schedule, and risk.
• Base period milestones on our funded programs delivered on time and on budget, with a deliverable record clean enough that the government expands the work with confidence
• Follow-on phases and contract growth secured on the strength of clean execution
• A program management foundation, including schedules, risk registers, and review cadences, that would survive a customer program review and that new hires can be onboarded into
• Government customers who know exactly where their program stands at all times

Responsibilities

• Program execution. Day-to-day management of our funded programs, including the integrated master schedule, milestone and deliverable tracking, action item management, and program battle rhythm. You drive every deliverable to on-time submission.
• Government deliverables and reporting. The full deliverable package our customers are owed, including CDRLs, milestone review packages, status reports, and financial reporting inputs, with technical report content authored by engineering and compiled and delivered by you. Our contracts carry growth potential well beyond the funded base, and a clean deliverable record is what unlocks it.
• Risk management. Build and maintain the program risk matrix, drive mitigation before risks become slips, and make sure leadership hears about problems while they are still cheap to fix.
• Requirements and verification tracking. Partner with our engineers to keep contract requirements, verification status, and ICDs organized and current. Engineering owns the requirements content and verification approach, you own that the traceability from contract commitment to verified artifact is tracked, visible, and never surprises the customer.
• Design review coordination. Manage the design review cadence (SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR) from the program seat, including scheduling, entrance and exit criteria tracking, action item closure, and customer sign-off. Engineering authors the review content and presents the technical work, you keep the process on track, unblock whatever engineering or the customer needs on the schedule and hardware front, and make sure reviews happen on time and land well.
• Technical performance visibility. Work with our systems engineering and vehicle leads, who own the mass, power, and propellant budgets, to keep technical margin status visible alongside cost and schedule, and flag margin erosion early with its program impact quantified so tradeoffs get made deliberately.
• Customer interface. Serve as the day-to-day point of contact with government program managers, CORs, and contracting officers on active contracts, and hold your own with their technical staff.
• Cross-functional coordination. Keep engineering, mission operations, and supply chain aligned to contract milestones, and surface resource conflicts before they become schedule problems.
• Process buildout. Create the WBS structures, scheduling discipline, risk registers, and reporting templates that become the company's program management foundation.
• Proposal support. Support cost volumes, basis of estimates, and execution plans for new pursuits with realistic schedules and technical execution detail.

Requirements

• 7+ years managing technical program execution on aerospace or defense programs, with hands-on ownership of schedules, deliverables, and risk, not just support roles on someone else's program
• Demonstrated fluency with the core programmatic toolkit, including integrated master schedules, milestone and deliverable tracking, risk matrices, and milestone-based cost tracking. You will be asked to walk through artifacts you personally built and maintained
• A proven history working on technical problems and managing hardware-focused technical programs, with the ability to follow system-level tradeoffs and engage credibly in design reviews. A technical degree is a bonus, demonstrated technical fluency is the requirement
• Experience with government customers, ideally DoD, including deliverable management and direct interaction with program offices and contracting officers
• Familiarity with OTs, SBIR/STTR, or other non-traditional contract vehicles is a strong plus
• Comfort operating without an existing process, since you will be building the process
• Experience with ITAR/EAR environments and eligibility to obtain a security clearance

Skills

Required

• Program management
• Integrated master scheduling
• Milestone and deliverable tracking
• Risk management
• Cost tracking
• Technical fluency in aerospace/defense
• ITAR/EAR environment experience

Preferred

• Technical degree (bonus)