Sr. Program Manager (UAE)

Role Overview

Sr. Program Manager (UAE) at Anduril Industries, based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. You will be one of the first on the ground for the Maneuver Dominance team, managing the Omen autonomous air vehicle program.

Company Overview

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company transforming U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. The company brings 21st century expertise, technology, and business models to the defense industry, changing how military systems are designed, built, and sold. Anduril's family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a real-time, 3D command and control center. Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

Omen is Anduril's hover-to-cruise autonomous air vehicle that provides endurance, payload, and mission flexibility in a novel runway-independent Group 3 platform. Omen can operate from ship decks, beaches, or remote island clearings, providing true runway independence and freedom of maneuver across defense and civilian domains. Omen is the first tail-sitter aircraft with a mass-production contract, with an order of 50 systems representing a decisive investment that anchors production and accelerates the development of future systems.

Role Purpose

You will play a critical role in balancing innovation and practical execution across the Omen program. You will be deeply intertwined in a highly complex global program, driving strategic decision making, evaluating program milestones, and managing appropriate resourcing in country. You will learn technical concepts and employ them quickly, using technical knowledge in conjunction with program management skills to lead cross-functional efforts and drive major program impact. You will support and collaborate with the Omen lead Program Manager based in Costa Mesa headquarters across Air Vehicle, Mission Systems, Support Systems, and Production Systems.

Key Responsibilities

Stakeholder Engagement

• Build and maintain relationships with internal stakeholders, external clients, and industry partners to gather insights, align objectives, and secure buy-in for strategic initiatives.
• Act as the local liaison for UAE relationships, including subsystem suppliers, in-country test organizations, establishment of facilities, and coordination of customer engagements.
• Communicate internally the outputs of stakeholder engagement efforts, including cost forecasts, schedule, resource requirements, risks, and opportunities.

Cross-Team Collaboration

• Manage, unblock, and accelerate cross-team projects spanning multiple teams and initiatives.
• Collaborate closely with leads to ensure vision alignment and seamless execution through development and into production, including test operations.

Technical Ownership

• Drive technical outcomes through meticulous understanding of system performance.
• Manage risks and opportunities with Engineering leads.
• Use metrics to derive insights into areas for improvement.
• Quantify improvements made through investment in those areas.
• Maintain a clear understanding of the state of the system that can be communicated to the customer.

Execution & Autonomy

• Execute autonomously on broad and/or ambiguous requirements from external clients.
• Demonstrate high ownership on all pieces of work.
• Become a trusted partner to Anduril's engineers.
• Thrive in the unknown and create order out of chaos.

Strategic Planning & Resource Management

• Translate strategic business goals into actionable project plans.
• Set clear milestones and drive initiatives from conception through to successful completion.
• Ensure initiatives deliver intended outcomes and add value to the business.
• Oversee the UAE allocation of personnel, budget, and other resources to ensure successful execution of these initiatives.

Growth & Opportunity Development

• Support the drafting of technical proposals.
• Ensure that potential projects and scaling opportunities are accurately scoped, estimated, and aligned with the organization's capabilities and strategic goals.

Qualifications & Experience

• 8+ years of experience in a customer-facing program management role and/or systems engineering experience, preferably in the defense, national security, or aerospace domains.
• Proven experience leading a technical team of peers to field hardware or software products to real operating environments through the product development lifecycle including test.
• Proven experience leading a product and manufacturing team of peers through initial low rate production.
• Solid technical aptitude and demonstrated individual contributions to technical designs, software development lifecycle, challenges and risks.
• Ability to work with internal and external stakeholders, across a wide range of technical comfort and at all levels.
• Experience working with international suppliers and customers.
• Must be able to obtain a Secret Clearance.

Skills & Competencies

• Strong technical, analytical and quantitative skills with the ability to use data and metrics to back up assumptions, recommendations and drive decisions.
• Ability to work closely and effectively with engineering teams.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work through ambiguity, roll up sleeves attitude, and drive forward progress.
• Experience with tools like JIRA and Confluence (preferred).

Additional Information

• Bachelor of Science degree in engineering, computer science, or related field (preferred).
• Experience defining new facilities or manufacturing spaces (preferred).
• Must be able to travel up to 50% of the time.
• Competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full-time offers and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package.
• Top-tier benefits package for full-time employees, available at little to no cost, supporting health, recovery, and more.