• Risk & Issue Resolution: Surface risks early, maintain the risk register, and work directly with technical leads to resolve blockers before they hit the schedule. Escalate to program leadership with context and a recommended path forward.

• Program Reporting: Prepare and deliver regular software program status to leadership, maintaining a clear and accurate picture of schedule health, open risks, delivery predictability, and upcoming decisions -- automating this reporting wherever possible so status is always current, not just current when someone asks

• Process Building: Help develop lightweight, effective program management processes suited to a small team moving fast -- minimizing meeting bloat through automation and async workflows, with real input into how TPM operates at Xona

• Hardware Fluency & Flex Coverage: Maintain working fluency in bus and payload development -- enough to sit credibly in integration and test reviews, understand how hardware milestones affect your software schedule, and step in on hardware program coordination or backfill the Satellite TPM when the program needs it

Required Qualifications

• 4–7 years of program or project management experience in complex software development, with meaningful exposure to aerospace, robotics, or another hardware-adjacent technical field

• Direct experience program-managing software teams through both active development and live/operational phases -- you understand that priorities, cadence, and risk look different once something is running in production (or in orbit)

• Strong systems thinker who can track interdependencies across multiple software workstreams -- and their interfaces with hardware -- without losing the critical path

• Comfortable operating in hardware environments -- you don't need to have owned a bus or payload schedule, but you've been close to spacecraft, robotics, or other complex hardware programs that avionics, RF, or integration/test

• Proficient enough as a programmer (Python, TypeScript/Node.js, or Go) to build and deploy lightweight internal tools, bots, and automations yourself

• Self-directed and comfortable operating with limited oversight

• Clear communicator who can work credibly with engineers and summarize status cleanly for leadership

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with GNSS, PNT systems, or mission operations concepts (telemetry, commanding, ground segment software, on-orbit anomaly response)

• Experience building bots, custom integrations across developer toolchains (GitHub, Linear/Wrike, Teams, Datadog, AWS/GCP), or internal developer portals

• Hands-on experience with satellite bus subsystems or RF/navigation payloads, or having worked through a full satellite program cycle from PDR/CDR through integration, test, and launch/operations

• Hands-on knowledge of workflow automation platforms (Temporal, n8n, Airflow, or similar)

• Prior experience as a software engineer or DevOps engineer before moving into technical program management

• PMP, Agile, or other PM certifications (nice to have, not a substitute for real program experience)

For U.S. Roles: To comply with U.S. Government space technology export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the United States (i.e. Green Card holder), or other protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).

For U.K. Roles: To comply with U.K. regulations, this role requires Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks, and successful candidates must be eligible to obtain UK Security Clearance (SC).

For Canada Roles: Successful candidates must obtain and hold a security clearance at the reliability status level, and pass security assessment for the Canadian Controlled Goods Program (CGP) and ITAR.

We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

Compensation: $145K - $175K