Special Projects Senior Manager, Air Defense

Anduril Industries • Irvine, CA

2d • Onsite

About The Position

Air Defense is a high-octane, rapidly scaling business line that develops, integrates, and fields an expanding mix of mature and novel capabilities to detect and defeat UAS threats. As our business line continues to scale, our newest emerging initiatives require focused direction and ownership to rapidly mature in support of Air Defense's operational, technical, and financial objectives. These special projects are critical to our organization's continued growth: they can convert into a new product, a new team, or a new program. We are looking for Special Projects Senior Managers to lead operations within the Fixed Site and Maneuver Capability Delivery Teams (CDT). The CDTs works across the entire capability lifecycle—from early R&D through contract capture, fielding, and sustainment. You will wear many hats as both a strategic thinker and tactical executor, and will require superb intellect and judgement to navigate a constantly-changing landscape of product development, performance, and growth. Your work will fundamentally shape the way the Business Line designs, tests, and fields capability offerings. We move fast at Anduril and give tremendous freedom and autonomy to our new hires to assume responsibility and exercise prudent interdisciplinary judgment. You should expect to be running at least two cross-functional projects independently within 60 days of hiring. When you join our team, you're signing up to immediately make an impact in our organization and with our customers globally.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree with 6+ years of work experience in problem-solving, cross-functional leadership roles
• Proven experience operating in at least two discrete industries or functional domains, preferably in Business Operations, Consulting, or HW Operations roles
• Demonstrated success delivering hardware to large commercial institutions or government organizations, ideally in a hardware operations or manufacturing operations role
• Experience with ERP tools like Oracle, NetSuite, and management tools like Jira, Airtable, or Microsoft Project
• Strong technical aptitude with the ability to engage credibly with engineers, operators, and executives on complex system capabilities
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret Security Clearance
• Willing to travel up to 50% of the time to support product testing, fielding, demonstrations, and customer engagements

Nice To Haves

• 4+ years of HW Product Management experience
• MBA
• Experience with ontology and data visualization-based development tools like Palantir Foundry, Databricks, Snowflake, or Power BI
• Position is full-time from Irvine, CA but requires regular travel to test sites, deployment locations, and customer facilities domestically and internationally.

Responsibilities

• Capability & Product Development You will lead cross-functional teams across the Air Defense business line and wider Anduril organization to build and scale early-stage products into mature, full-rate production products. You will spearhead our team’s Hardware Operations across the product lifecycle, implementing scalable, mature processes and systems to increase the velocity of our developing products and the maturity of our saleable products. You will develop deep expertise in the capabilities and limitations of Anduril's CUAS Family of Systems, including emerging technologies on the leading edge of development, and work with engineers to align evolving product direction with mission and customer requirements.
• Internal Operations You will be the operational backbone of the Site Capability Teams. You’ll translate strategic objectives into executable plans, and will integrate directly with our functional stakeholders in Engineering, Product, Operations, and Development to orchestrate successful outcomes. You will lead financial planning, budgeting, labor, and headcount spend across all of our internal Research and Development initiatives. You will interface directly with our ERP systems, designing extensible tools to accelerate our operational scale and team capacity.
• Global Growth & Strategic Initiatives You will be a trusted product consultant for the Air Defense Business Line's international growth opportunities and strategic engagements. You will communicate the nuances of engineering and production roadmaps for Air Defense products, consult on product-market fit for international growth leads, and participate as the business-line representative in high-visibility engagements with senior domestic and foreign government officials. You will develop deep mission expertise—understanding the nature of threats, operational constraints, rules of engagement, and customer requirements—and translate this understanding into product strategy and business development priorities.
• Lead Flagship Business Line Initiatives As Anduril rapidly scales, we are often presented with unexpected opportunities that require a nimble and autonomous leader to own end-to-end. You will be a full-field player for the business line and will demonstrate extreme professional versatility as an elite generalist, filling in where the need is greatest. You will build teams and processes with longevity in mind—creating systems that are resilient and scalable beyond your personal involvement—and you'll be unafraid to transition successful initiatives to others as new priorities emerge.

Benefits

• Healthcare Benefits US Roles: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans at little to no cost to you. UK & AUS Roles: We cover full cost of medical insurance premiums for you and your dependents. IE Roles: We offer an annual contribution toward your private health insurance for you and your dependents.
• Additional Benefits Income Protection : Anduril covers life and disability insurance for all employees.
• Generous time off : Highly competitive PTO plans with a holiday hiatus in December. Caregiver & Wellness Leave is available to care for family members, bond with a new baby, or address your own medical needs.
• Family Planning & Parenting Support: Coverage for fertility treatments (e.g., IVF, preservation), adoption, and gestational carriers, along with resources to support you and your partner from planning to parenting.
• Mental Health Resources: Access free mental health resources 24/7, including therapy and life coaching. Additional work-life services, such as legal and financial support, are also available.
• Professional Development: Annual reimbursement for professional development
• Commuter Benefits: Company-funded commuter benefits based on your region.
• Relocation Assistance: Available depending on role eligibility.
• Retirement Savings Plan US Roles: Traditional 401(k), Roth, and after-tax (mega backdoor Roth) options. UK & IE Roles: Pension plan with employer match. AUS Roles: Superannuation plan.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level