Senior Technical Program Manager, Quality

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 Quality within Anduril's defense technology division. The primary responsibility is to build and own systems that connect incoming quality to defects, root causes, and cost impact, making quality engineering outcomes measurable and tied to financial performance. The role involves driving cross-team accountability, ensuring technical credibility in manufacturing processes, and leveraging quantitative models to identify quality issues. While the company utilizes AI and advanced technologies, this specific role is focused on the quality systems and program management aspects of complex hardware production, rather than direct AI/ML model development.

What you'd actually do

  1. Build and own the mechanisms that connect incoming quality, in-process defects, root cause, and cost impact into a closed loop that drives decisions
  2. Own cost-of-quality trending, closed-loop resolution rate, and continuous improvement velocity measured in cost and cycle time
  3. Drive cross-team resolution across quality engineering, production, supply chain, and design when quality issues emerge
  4. Own schedule and financial performance of every quality-driven decision on the program
  5. Build KPIs that connect operational quality metrics to program-level cost, schedule, and delivery outcomes

Skills

Required

  • 5+ years in technical program management, quality engineering, or quality systems roles in complex hardware production environments
  • Demonstrated ability to build quality systems and cost-of-quality frameworks from scratch, not just maintain existing ones
  • Experience driving cross-functional resolution of quality issues spanning engineering, production, and supply chain
  • Technical depth in manufacturing processes sufficient to challenge root cause analysis and validate corrective actions
  • Experience interfacing with government quality oversight (DCMA or equivalent)
  • Comfortable building or interpreting quantitative models to inform quality and cost 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

  • Lean Six Sigma certification or equivalent demonstrated application of structured problem solving and statistical methods to quality and process improvement
  • Experience in aerospace, defense, or autonomous systems production environments
  • Proficiency with data tools such as Palantir Foundry, statistical process control software, or custom analytics stacks
  • Background in causal modeling, classification analysis, or predictive quality analytics
  • AS9100 or equivalent aerospace quality management system experience
  • Experience scaling quality systems alongside production ramp from low rate to full rate

What the JD emphasized

  • build quality systems and cost-of-quality frameworks from scratch
  • technical depth in manufacturing processes sufficient to challenge root cause analysis and validate corrective actions
  • interfacing with government quality oversight (DCMA or equivalent)