Senior Technical Program Manager – Autonomy
About The Position
NODA is a Veteran-owned, venture-backed technology company that is transforming how unmanned systems collaborate in complex, mission-critical environments. We are developing next-generation solutions that enable the autonomous orchestration of heterogeneous unmanned systems across air, sea, land, and space with vital applications in the defense, intelligence, and commercial sectors. Our Technical Program Managers serve as the connective tissue between engineering execution and program delivery, translating complex, multi-domain autonomy requirements into disciplined, on-time delivery. Joining NODA means working on meaningful technology that pushes the boundaries of autonomy alongside a team that thrives on innovation, rapid iteration, and collaboration.
Requirements
- 8+ years of experience in technical program / project management for software or autonomy engineering teams.
- Demonstrated mastery of requirement management — intake, refinement, traceability, and change control on complex programs.
- Substantial hands-on experience with autonomy systems — e.g., unmanned/robotic vehicle platforms, perception, path planning, guidance/navigation/control (GNC), or multi-agent/swarm coordination — sufficient to engage directly with autonomy engineers and translate algorithm and systems-engineering concepts into structured requirements.
- High Jira fluency, with the ability to configure dashboards, workflows and custom reports.
- Excellent verbal and written communication; able to synthesize and decompose strategic vision into clear executable plans.
- Experience standing up and driving adoption of new process framework / operating models from scratch.
- U.S. Citizen with the ability to obtain a security clearance for work.
Nice To Haves
- Background in autonomy, robotics, aerospace, or defense programs — commercial UxS, military autonomy, or research environments.
- Familiarity with simulation, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), or field test environments used to validate autonomous systems.
- Agile or Project Management certifications such as SAFe, Scrum Alliance, PMP, Lean Six Sigma.
- Experience in product management, change management, or process improvement.
- Experience operating in a highly technical, AI- and autonomy-forward team environment.
Responsibilities
- Lead requirement intake and refinement sessions for autonomy capabilities (perception, planning, GNC, multi-agent/swarm behaviors), translating product and mission intent into clear, testable, well-scoped engineering requirements and own associated acceptance criteria.
- Maintain requirement traceability from initiative → epic → story → acceptance criteria so every unit of work maps to a stated need and a definition of done.
- Enforce scope discipline through the release cycle; manage changes through an explicit intake and change-control process.
- Keep initiative, epic, and story status current in Jira; own the blocked-initiative log and coordinate with Project Engineers on state transitions.
- Enforce Jira hygiene conventions (fields, labels, components, definition-of-ready/done) so the tool remains a reliable system of record.
- Own and run all Autonomy team sprint ceremonies — planning, standup, review, retro, and backlog refinement — including agenda prep, facilitation, follow-up notes, and action-item tracking.
- Manage cross-team dependencies across Autonomy, Core, Systems, Solutions, and Release Engineering, surfacing and resolving them before issues become a blocker.
- Produce concise, informative and audience relevant technical briefs to drive program forward.
Benefits
- Competitive salary
- Comprehensive benefits
- Opportunities for career growth
- Medical, dental, and visions plans
- 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan + Company match
- Equity grants for new hires
- Unlimited PTO
- 11 Paid holidays
- Extremely generous company holiday calendar, including a holiday hiatus in November, & December.
- Generous Parental Leave
- Military Leave for annual training or service requirements
- FSA
- DCFSA
- HSA
- Professional Development Opportunities
- Access to One Medical
- Mental Health Resources: We provide free mental health resources 24/7 including therapy and more. Additional work-life services, such as free legal and financial support, are available to you as well.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
