
Program Manager, Mission Autonomy, Active Clearance
Anduril Industries
Posted about 2 hours ago
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 a highly motivated Program Manager (PM) to oversee the software release lifecycle and development process within the Mission Autonomy division to support autonomous flight initiatives. In this role, you will lead the Internal Research & Development (IRAD) efforts to develop, integrate, test, and operationalize next-generation mission autonomy software onto airframes. You will spend your time collaborating with world-class software engineers, systems engineers, quality assurance, and flight test pilots to test and validate autonomy solutions in simulation and prove it in the air.
What You’ll Do
- Drive the Autonomy Roadmap: Own the end-to-end scope, schedule, budget, resource allocation, and execution of the Mission Autonomy IRAD (Internal Research and Development) roadmap.
- Lead Test & Evaluation Strategy: Own the strategy, development, and execution of team-controlled test environments (Simulation, Software-in-the-Loop, Hardware-in-the-Loop) and test infrastructure. Partner with Test & Evaluation (T&E) teams to coordinate real-world flight testing, ensuring software is thoroughly tested before live flight.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including software engineers, hardware engineers, chief engineers, program managers, business operations, and finance to meet the IRAD objectives.
- Facilitate Technical Decisions: Develop deep technical fluency in vehicle systems to effectively facilitate architectural discussions, evaluate engineering trade-offs, and drive team consensus.
- Unblock the Engineering Team: Anticipate bottlenecks, manage risk, make prioritization trade-offs, and clear administrative and logistical hurdles so engineers can focus on building.
- Strategic Capture: Manage capture programs by helping identify opportunities, assessing viability, developing a winning strategy, and supporting proposals.
- Report to Leadership: Provide clear, data-driven status updates, risk assessments, and flight-test debriefs to executive leadership and key stakeholders.
Required Qualifications
- Active U.S. Security Clearance: Must possess an active Secret clearance (TS/SCI strongly preferred).
- Technical Foundation: Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline.
- Proven PM Experience: 4+ years of technical program management, product management, or engineering leadership experience in the aerospace, defense, autonomous systems industries, or relevant industry.
- Bias for Action: Demonstrated ability to thrive in a fast-paced, ambiguous, and rapidly changing environment as a self-starter who gets things done.
- Travel: Ability to travel up to 30-50% to operations sites and test ranges.
Preferred Qualifications
- Active TS/SCI Security Clearance.
- Autonomy Expertise: Experience with autonomous command and control (C2), collaborative autonomy, or AI/ML-driven decision-making systems.
- Flight Test Experience: Direct hands-on experience planning, executing, and analyzing flight tests for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)—ideally Group 3, 4, or 5 platforms.
- Pilot or Operator Experience: Experience as a rated pilot (manned) or UAS operator (Group 3-5) is a significant plus.
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:
- Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an
@anduril.comaddress. - 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 [email protected].
- Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an
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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.
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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 [email protected]. 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/.
Job details
Workplace
Office
Location
Costa Mesa, California, United States
Experience
SE
Salary
166k - 220k USD
per year
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