Senior Technical Program Manager

Required Skills & Experience

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical/Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Robotics, Applied Physics, or a related technical discipline.
• Experience: Minimum of 5 years of experience leading technology innovation, rapid hardware/systems prototyping, or technology scouting/evaluation programs, with practical exposure to aviation maintenance, field testing, or hardware-in-the-loop operational environments.
• Demonstrated Experience (a mix of the following):
• Demonstrated proficiency applying Agile software development principles within software-centric, hardware centric or integrated systems environments, including coordinating iterative development cycles between software teams, hardware prototyping teams, and operational end users.
• Practical experience evaluating, bench-testing, and deploying hardware/sensor-integrated systems in field, industrial, or flightline settings.
• Hands-on familiarity with agile prototyping methodologies, minimum viable product (MVP) design sprints, or competitive technology evaluations.
• Familiarity with the operational realities and safety hazards of military or commercial flightlines (e.g., Foreign Object Debris [FOD] prevention, explosive fuel-vapor zones, high-noise and high-tempo flight schedules).
• Direct experience writing technical problem statements, evaluation criteria, and managing vendor prototype deliverables under accelerated timelines.

Job Description

The Senior Technical Program Manager (TPM) –Emerging Technology Innovation serves as the principal technology scout, innovation architect, and field-experimentation lead for operational flightline sustainment. In this role, you will champion "art-of-the-possible" technologies to solve acute operational friction points for crew chiefs and maintainers - dramatically reducing aircraft turn times, eliminating manual inspection backlogs, and enhancing combat sortie generation rates.

Key technology vectors include autonomous/robotic airframe and intake inspection systems, computer-vision non-destructive inspection (NDI), augmented reality (AR) field-telepresence and digital work instructions, autonomous ground support equipment (eGSE/AGSE), IoT-instrumented smart tools, and expeditionary point-of-need repair hardware.

Key Responsibilities

Venture Scouting, Horizon Scanning & "Art-of-the-Possible" Exploration

• Serve as an agile technology scout across commercial dual-use tech ecosystems, venture-backed robotics/hardware startups, national laboratories, and academic spin-offs to discover transformative maintenance solutions.
• Continuously map the emerging technology landscape, identifying non-defense commercial breakthroughs (e.g., consumer drone inspection, commercial warehouse robotics, industrial AR, connected shop-floor telemetry) and architecting pathways for military flightline adaptation.
• Actively engage frontline crew chiefs, flightline expediters, and Maintenance Group (MXG) leaders to unearth latent operational bottlenecks and reframe them into agile innovation challenges and rapid prototyping problem statements. Rapid Prototyping, Field Experimentation & "Fail-Fast" Sprints
• Design and execute high-tempo Proof-of-Concept (PoC) and Minimum Viable Capability (MVC) field trials - moving technologies from initial concept to hands-on flightline testing in months rather than years.
• Direct live experimentation and "bake-offs" on operational flightlines and hangars, placing early prototypes directly into maintainers' hands to collect empirical usability, human-machine interface (HMI), and operational efficacy feedback.
• Establish quantitative evaluation scorecards and down-selection matrices assessing novel hardware on critical flightline criteria: setup time, size/weight/power (SWaP), FOD resistance, intrinsic safety in fuel/explosive vapor zones, maintainer cognitive load, and ruggedness under extreme weather.
• Champion a disciplined "fail-fast, pivot-quickly" mindset, terminating unpromising approaches early and doubling down on scalable, high-payoff innovations. Agile Prototyping Contracting & Technology Scaling
• Provides technical support and subject matter expertise to government leads for SBIR/STTR Phase II/III, OTA consortium, and CSO efforts, ensuring they have the engineering insight needed to manage and evaluate innovative solutions.
• Craft streamlined Statements of Objectives (SOO) and agile prototyping milestones that empower commercial non-traditional defense vendors to iterate rapidly.
• Architect frictionless operational transition roadmaps - translating winning prototypes into programs of record by collaborating closely with System Program Offices (SPOs), ALCs, MAJCOM requirements leads, and Air Force Safety authorities.
• Navigate flightline deployment barriers, including interim flightline safety clearances, Technical Order (T.O.) deviation waivers, and Risk Management Framework (RMF) cyber validation for connected edge devices.