Lead Product Marketing Manager

AeroVironment•Simi Valley, CA

21h•Onsite

About The Position

AV's Loitering Munitions / Precision Strike portfolio is a $500M+ franchise and one of the most consequential product lines in defense technology, with combat-proven systems fielded by the U.S. and allied forces. This role is its dedicated Product Marketing owner reporting to the Head of Product Marketing with dotted line to VP of Marketing & Communications. You will own product positioning, messaging, launch planning, and sales enablement for the franchise end-to-end. This is a senior individual contributor role with real decision rights and a single-owner accountability model: one portfolio, one owner, direct executive visibility. The mandate is to bring software-industry product marketing discipline to a defense franchise whose buyers are USG program offices and allied governments: positioning rigor grounded in operational evidence, launch planning that run on a repeatable framework, and enablement that measurably moves capture outcomes. This is not an arms-length marketing role. You will operate as an embedded member of the Loitering Munitions business, building your positioning and enablement from inside the business unit's operating rhythm rather than from briefings after the fact.

Requirements

12+ years total post-military or civilian work experience
8+ years in product marketing with meaningful time in both enterprise software or hardware-software product marketing and defense, aerospace, or dual-use technology.
Demonstrated ownership of a product line or portfolio at $100M+ revenue scale.
Fluency in DoD acquisition dynamics: program of record lifecycles, POM cycles, FMS/DCS mechanics.
Demonstrable positioning craft: you can show a positioning document, launch plan, campaign plan, and enablement asset you built that moved a measurable number.
Ability to operate within export control, classification, and public-release constraints without diluting message strength.
Self-directed operator: you run a portfolio with executive-level accountability and minimal day-to-day direction.
Proven ability to earn the trust of technical and program stakeholders and operate inside a business unit's rhythm, functioning as a partner to the business rather than a service function.
Commutable distance from AV Simi Valley Campus

Nice To Haves

Direct experience marketing loitering munitions, one-way attack, or EW products.
Prior military service or program office exposure.
Active or recent Secret clearance, or ability to obtain one.
Experience competing in the modern defense technology landscape against established primes and emerging entrants.

Responsibilities

Build deep, trusted relationships with Business Unit leadership, program managers, capture leads, and engineering.
Partner with product managers as their marketing counterpart on roadmap milestones, launch readiness, claims substantiation, and customer evidence / operational proof.
Embed in the business unit's operational cadence: program reviews, capture gate reviews, and planning rhythms setting Marketing priorities from this perspective
Own the brand positioning and messaging architecture for the LMS/Strike portfolio: differentiated claims backed by operational evidence, not capability adjectives.
Own the consolidation of voice of customer inputs to feed structured customer and operator insight back into MarCom, Product and BD strategy.
Maintain all Buyer and User Persona profiles.
Use AV’s messaging architecture to translate mission outcomes (effects delivered, cost-per-effect, sustainment, interoperability) into customer-facing narratives for external audiences.
Ensure product-level positioning plugs cleanly into AV's corporate narrative architecture.
Deliver export-aware localized positioning for priority allied regions, within ITAR and export-control boundaries.
Run AV’s tiered product launch framework with full launch plans and bill of materials, executed cross-functionally with creative, technical communications, and campaign teams.
Serve as the single accountable owner for product launch content and claims accuracy.
Support ongoing marketing campaigns build on AV’s integrated campaign model.
Build and maintain the enablement stack: battlecards, Operational Proof Library (OPL), and demo and trade-show messaging.
Drive measurable asset adoption: target >75% adoption of current collateral by sales and capture teams.
Own the competitive picture for the loitering munitions category: capability, production capacity, pricing posture, and acquisition traction of rivals.