Senior Program Manager, Defense Product Development and Delivery

Powerus is building and scaling advanced autonomous systems for U.S. and allied defense, national security, and critical infrastructure customers. We operate at the intersection of autonomy, advanced manufacturing, and mission-focused technology, moving rapidly from requirements and engineering development into production and operational deployment.

We are seeking an experienced Senior Program Manager to lead the development, execution, and delivery of a major defense program.

This position has end-to-end accountability for delivering a significant defense program on time, within budget, and in accordance with technical and contractual requirements. You will own the program across the complete product development and delivery lifecycle—from contract award, requirements definition, and engineering development through prototype builds, design reviews, verification and validation, production readiness, delivery, customer acceptance, and closeout.

The Senior Program Manager will coordinate engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, flight test, finance, contracts, subcontractors, and the customer while maintaining accountability for the program’s integrated technical, cost, and schedule baseline.

This position requires direct experience managing complex hardware development within an engineering environment. The successful candidate must understand systems engineering, requirements traceability, phase-gate reviews, design maturity, configuration control, verification and validation, and the transition from engineering development into repeatable production.

This is not an administrative coordination position. The Senior Program Manager is expected to drive decisions, identify and resolve cross-functional dependencies, challenge unsupported assumptions, maintain objective visibility into program health, and ensure that commitments are supported by executable plans and technical evidence.

• Own overall execution of a major defense contract or customer program, with accountability for cost, schedule, technical performance, contractual compliance, and delivery.
• Lead the program from contract award through engineering development, qualification, production, customer acceptance, and closeout.
• Develop, maintain, and manage the Integrated Master Schedule, ensuring that engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, test, and customer milestones are fully integrated.
• Establish and maintain the program budget, resource plan, risk register, action-item log, decision log, and contractual deliverables schedule.
• Translate contractual requirements and customer commitments into executable work packages, milestones, ownership, and acceptance criteria.
• Identify program dependencies and constraints early and drive their resolution across functional organizations.
• Provide leadership with accurate, evidence-based reporting on cost, schedule, technical performance, risks, decisions, and recovery actions.

• Own program execution across the complete product lifecycle: requirements, design, prototype builds, integration, verification and validation, production readiness, production, delivery, and sustainment transition.
• Plan and lead formal engineering lifecycle reviews, including System Requirements Review, Preliminary Design Review, prototype build reviews, Critical Design Review, and Production Readiness Review.
• Establish gate entry and exit criteria, required evidence, action ownership, closure requirements, and approval authority for each lifecycle review.
• Ensure the product advances through each lifecycle gate based on objective technical evidence and demonstrated maturity.
• Maintain traceability between contractual requirements,…