Production Program Manager, Space
Anduril · Costa Mesa, United States · 16d 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 TEAM
Anduril’s Space Manufacturing team is seeking a Production Program Manager to join our team. The Space Manufacturing team is responsible for the assembly, integration and test of complete space vehicles across multiple concurrent product lines, and for the manufacturing engineering, test operations and tooling that make those builds repeatable at rate. Your expertise will help ensure that our products meet the highest standards of quality and reliability at Anduril.
As a Production Program Manager, you will be a program leader responsible for planning, directing, and measuring the seamless execution and integration of the production work stream across multiple functions, including manufacturing engineering, supply chain, Quality, test, and design engineering. You will lead initiatives in collaboration with Business Line and Manufacturing Engineering to define, deploy, and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) across these functions during New Product Introduction, Limited Rate and Full Rate Production phases. These KPIs will span schedule, cost, risk management, product maturation, and resource utilization, in accordance with Anduril’s Manufacturing Development Process (MDP). You'll also own the manufacturing and Assembly, Integration, and Test (AIT) execution plan — schedule, risk, KPIs and gate readiness. It does not own the engineering work itself; manufacturing engineering, test operations and quality are owned by their respective leads.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
- Partner with planning, production, manufacturing engineering, design engineering, supply chain, quality, launch operations and business line leadership on strategic priorities and delivery commitments.
- Own the integrated manufacturing and AIT schedule across multiple product lines: build it, maintain it as the schedule of record, and run the critical path and execution-risk analysis leadership decides from.
- Drive execution against that schedule week to week: convene the cross-functional cadence, hold owners to dates, surface slips early with quantified impact, and drive recovery plans rather than reporting variance after the fact.
- Define, deploy and monitor manufacturing KPIs from New Product Introduction through full rate production per Anduril's Manufacturing Development Process, and build the gate-readiness and critical-path reporting leadership acts on.
- Build and maintain the production cost model with Sourcing, Manufacturing Engineering and Finance. This model is the principal basis for strategic decisions on production design, operations and resource allocation.
- Serve as the manufacturing and AIT counterpart to the program managers and chief engineers, carrying delegated authority from the Director of Manufacturing to conduct manufacturing and AIT gates.
- Own manufacturing and AIT risk: maintain the risk register, quantify schedule and cost exposure, drive mitigation to closure, and make the trade between accepting risk and holding a gate explicit rather than implicit.
- Integrate the manufacturing engineering, test operations and MEP process steps into the program plan and capture that scope correctly within NRE so the work is funded rather than absorbed.
- Represent production up and out: contribute proposal and Basis of Estimate content for manufacturing and AIT scope, present at milestone reviews, and brief customers and business line leadership on execution status, gate readiness and risk.
- Engage principal vendors and partners alongside Sourcing to hold delivery commitments and contract compliance and integrate their milestones into the schedule as dependencies with real dates.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations Management, Industrial Engineering or a related technical discipline.
- 8+ years in program, project or production management in aerospace, space, defense or another complex hardware industry.
- 3+ years owning schedule and execution for a hardware program.
- Currently possesses and is able to maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Currently possesses and is able to maintain an active U.S. Top Secret security clearance.
- Has personally owned an integrated master schedule as the schedule of record — built the network, maintained it, ran critical path — with network-level fluency in Microsoft Project, Primavera P6 or Smartsheet: logic, float, resource loading and baselines.
- Experience managing a program through a New Product Introduction transition into rate production, with the readiness gates and reviews that go with it (PDR, CDR, MRR, TRR, PRR or equivalents).
- Has held a date or a gate against pressure from a peer organization and can describe how it was resolved. This role fails without it.
- Demonstrated risk and performance management on a hardware program: a maintained risk register with quantified exposure and mitigations driven to closure, plus KPIs that changed a decision where you can explain the mechanism.
- Has represented a production or program organization up and out: contributed proposal and Basis of Estimate content, and briefed customers or executive leadership on status, readiness and risk. Both the written and the in-person sides matter here.
- Has built or owned a production cost model — unit cost, labor content, material cost, NRE versus recurring — and used it to drive a decision on capacity, make/buy or resource allocation.
- Spacecraft or satellite program experience, including integration and test campaign scheduling and environmental test sequencing.
- Took a hardware program from single-digit annual builds into rate production of 100+ units per year.
- Earned value management or control account ownership, and experience capturing manufacturing scope correctly within NRE.
- Managed supplier and partner delivery commitments alongside Sourcing, including contract compliance and recovery on a late supplier.
- PMP, Agile, Lean or Six Sigma credentials, and working fluency in Jira, Confluence and Smartsheet.
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.
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