Engineering Project Manager
About The Position
Ulysses is hiring an Engineering Project Manager to take robot development projects from an agreed scope through to a tested system. The role coordinates mechanical, electrical, software, manufacturing, and operations work on Mako, an autonomous underwater vehicle, and Leviathan, an autonomous surface platform. The project manager works alongside engineers in the workshop and during integration and testing, understanding schedule dependencies, asking technical questions, and helping the team respond to delays or failed tests. Ulysses is developing autonomous surface and subsea drones, robotics, and AI systems for challenges involving nature, infrastructure, and maritime security. Its first product line is a suite of autonomous drones and attachments intended to make seagrass ecosystem restoration cheaper and easier. The company works with governments in the US and Australia and environmental groups including The Nature Conservancy, and is a Series A company backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz.
Requirements
- Experience delivering hardware or robotics projects across engineering disciplines through integration, testing, and use outside the lab.
- Technical depth to follow mechanical and electrical interfaces, software dependencies, and test results, and to recognize missing work.
- Practical planning judgment, including distinguishing estimates from commitments, identifying dependencies, and explaining which decisions affect delivery.
- A record of getting work done across teams without formal authority, following through, clarifying ownership, and raising problems early.
- Comfort with changing prototypes and incomplete information, and the ability to revise a plan while keeping unresolved issues visible.
- Clear written and verbal communication, including concise technical updates with specific decisions and next actions.
- Willingness to work on-site in San Francisco alongside the people building and testing the hardware.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with marine robotics, autonomous vehicles, or other hardware used in demanding field conditions.
- An engineering background with hands-on integration, testing, or manufacturing experience.
- Experience taking prototypes into production while controlling engineering changes and configuration records.
- Experience coordinating field trials with limited vehicles, facilities, or specialist equipment.
Responsibilities
- Build development plans with clear deliverables, owners, dependencies, and test milestones; work with engineers on estimates and expose assumptions early.
- Coordinate mechanisms, housings, power, navigation, embedded software, and vehicle control; record interface decisions and communicate changes to affected people.
- Track the critical path across long-lead components, prototype builds, external work, and unresolved decisions, and bring people together to unblock work.
- Plan integration around available hardware and software, and track the configuration and revisions used in each build and test.
- Define acceptance criteria and test coverage with engineering and test teams, from bench checks through integrated vehicle tests and sea trials.
- Coordinate test readiness with operations, including vehicles, payloads, boats, equipment, and people; confirm each test’s purpose and prerequisites.
- Manage scope and schedule changes, explain impacts on related work, present options, and obtain decisions in time.
- Maintain concise records of risks, decisions, and actions; follow failures through fixes and retesting; coordinate drawings, build instructions, and evidence for production release.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Education Level
No Education Listed
