Director, Program Management

This Director of Program Management role at Apium Swarm Robotics owns the execution, requirements, and test strategy for the company's family of unmanned air systems. The role sits at the intersection of product management, test and evaluation, and program execution, accountable for ensuring air systems are well-specified, exhaustively tested, and delivered through events and demonstrations that meet mission and margin objectives. The position is an individual contributor at the director level today, with a pathway to build a program management team as the company scales.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end execution of paid events and strategic demonstrations, establishing integrated plans spanning scope, schedule, milestones, dependencies, and budget, with direct accountability for event-level cost, revenue, and gross-margin performance
• Own test strategy and execution across the full development lifecycle for current and future air systems, including system-level verification and validation, test phasing, and prioritization across SITL, HITL, ground, and flight-test environments
• Coordinate cross-functional test execution across DevSecOps, Electrical, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Engineering to ensure comprehensive coverage of every hardware and software modality, managing test readiness and risk at each gate
• Develop, own, and publish product requirements documents and roadmaps for ASR’s air systems, serving as the voice of the customer and translating operational needs and leadership vision into a prioritized product direction
• Decompose ambiguous, complex requirements into concrete, engineering-actionable specifications, partnering hands-on with engineering to scope features and drive execution through the full product lifecycle
• Serve as ASR’s coordination point with Red Cat’s global product management organization, documenting and actively managing cross-platform dependencies and interlocking commitments in Jira
• Establish disciplined, auditable change-management and requirements-traceability processes that remain responsive to short-horizon, high-priority business needs
• Capture and distill feedback from customers and partners to identify new business development and product-offering opportunities, feeding them into ASR’s product roadmap and growth strategy
• Establish and lead a consistent cadence of program reviews, surfacing critical-path risks, bottlenecks, and mitigation options to executive leadership
• Build and mature the program-management processes, tooling, and documentation standards that will scale as ASR’s air-systems portfolio grows

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in program management, product management, systems engineering, or test and evaluation, including demonstrated ownership of a function or major program
• Demonstrated experience owning product requirements for a hardware or hardware-plus-software product, from vision through engineering-actionable specification
• Demonstrated experience developing and executing test plans across simulation and real-world environments, ideally including SITL, HITL, and live flight or field testing
• Experience owning program or event execution with direct accountability for cost, revenue, or margin outcomes
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills, with a track record coordinating software, electrical, mechanical, and manufacturing teams toward a shared delivery
• Rigorous approach to change management and documentation, balanced with the pragmatism to move quickly on high-priority business needs
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to brief executive leadership and translate between technical teams and business stakeholders
• Working technical fluency with unmanned air systems, autonomy, or comparable complex engineered systems — sufficient to earn the trust of engineering teams
• Comfort working independently with limited oversight
• Ability to remain calm and effective under operational pressure

Nice to have

• Prior experience at a defense technology startup or scale-up, particularly during commercial-to-defense transition
• Prior US military service, particularly in aviation, test and evaluation, operational planning, or program management roles
• Direct experience with UAS, counter-UAS, or autonomous air platform programs
• Formal test and evaluation (T&E) background, including test plan development, verification and validation, and requirements traceability
• Experience managing programs within a multi-subsidiary or matrixed corporate structure with cross-organization dependencies
• Familiarity with SITL/HITL frameworks, autopilot ecosystems (PX4, ArduPilot, MAVLink), or comparable systems
• Experience with product requirements and program tooling such as Jira, Confluence, DOORS, or comparable systems
• PMP, SAFe, or comparable program-management certification
• Experience building or scaling a program management or product management function from the ground up
• Familiarity with ITAR/EAR and defense acquisition or contracting environments
• Experience owning P&L or event-level margin accountability for demonstrations, trials, or customer programs
• Advanced degree in engineering, business, or a related field
• U.S. security clearance or ability to obtain one

Benefits

• Compensation: Salary: 176K-205.92K plus bonus, equity and benefits