Senior Technical Program Manager, Production Engineering

Anduril Anduril · Defense · Costa Mesa, CA · Air Dominance & Strike : Autonomous Airpower Engineering : Program Management

This role is for a Senior Technical Program Manager focused on the production engineering aspects of defense technology products, specifically managing the transition from design to production for New Product Introduction (NPI) and sustaining changes. The role requires strong discipline in NPI and change management, technical depth to challenge engineering on producibility, and the ability to drive decisions quickly across organizational boundaries. Responsibilities include owning schedule and cost performance, ensuring release readiness, assessing ECO/ECN impacts, driving resolution of engineering changes, leading DFM reviews, building measurable systems for engineering-to-production handoff, and leveraging quantitative models. The role also involves preparing technical documentation and maintaining reproducible analysis pipelines.

What you'd actually do

  1. Own the schedule and cost performance of engineering-to-production transition for NPI and sustaining changes
  2. Drive engineering release readiness with clear criteria, blocking releases that are not production-ready
  3. Work with the change management team to assess ECO/ECN impact on production schedule, cost, and rework
  4. Track and drive resolution of engineering changes with downstream production impact, owning rework and retrofit rate accountability
  5. Drive DFM reviews and ensure producibility is addressed before designs lock, not after

Skills

Required

  • 5+ years in technical program management, NPI, or design-to-production roles in complex hardware environments
  • Demonstrated experience blocking or redirecting engineering releases based on production readiness assessment
  • Technical depth in hardware design and manufacturing processes sufficient to challenge engineering on producibility
  • Experience managing engineering change processes (ECO/ECN) and tracing change impact to cost and schedule
  • Comfortable building or interpreting quantitative models to inform design and production trade decisions
  • Familiar with version control, scripting, scalable workflows, and reproducible analysis practices
  • Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance

Nice to have

  • Experience in aerospace, defense, or autonomous systems NPI and production transition
  • Proficiency with data tools such as Palantir Foundry, PLM systems, or custom analytics stacks
  • Background in trade studies, tolerance analysis, or process capability modeling applied to DFM decisions
  • Experience scaling NPI processes from prototype to rate production
  • Familiarity with complex electromechanical, avionics, or composite manufacturing processes

What the JD emphasized

  • blocking releases that are not production-ready
  • blocking or redirecting engineering releases based on production readiness assessment
  • challenge engineering on producibility
  • challenge engineering