Product Manager

Description

Spacecraft are among the most urgently needed products in aerospace. As more launch vehicles come online and launch costs fall, more companies want to put payloads into orbit.

Reduced launch costs and a growing number of payload companies have sharply increased demand for commercial spacecraft platforms, called satellite buses. The buses carry customers' payloads and fly on launch vehicles.

The company builds these satellite buses at scale, combining software, vertical integration, and hardware designed for manufacturing. Its spacecraft support uses ranging from earth observation to communications.

The role sits in the product organization and owns the product definition for the spacecraft platforms and the mission services built around them. The company builds configurable, productized platforms for customers who need constellations deployed quickly, and this role decides what the platform is, which configurations and services customers can pick, and what each block upgrade contains.

You will work with engineering, mission integration, supply chain, manufacturing, business development, and customers to keep the platform standard while meeting market needs.

Responsibilities

• Own the roadmap for the spacecraft platform, covering current and next-generation platforms and the block upgrades between them.
• Set platform requirements, standard interfaces, and customer configurations, and guard the platform against one-off changes that add NRE or slow production.
• Own the mission services built around the platform, including integration support, software, communications, ground, and operations, and define what each package includes.
• Work with customers and business development to understand needs in defense, intelligence, communications, sensing, science, and commercial markets, and translate them into product requirements.
• Decide which customer requests become platform changes, configurable options, or services, and help choose which missions the company pursues.
• Work with mission integration to meet payload needs without changing the platform, and feed what each mission teaches back into the product.
• Work with engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, and test to confirm that product decisions can be built at production rate and within cost targets.
• Bring lessons from testbed and flight vehicles into the platform through block upgrades.
• Support pricing and packaging with finance and business development, and track price-performance against targets.
• Write and maintain product specifications and customer documentation, including datasheets and standard interface documents.
• Track competitors, including other platform providers and vertically integrated constellations, and use that information in product decisions.
• Define and track product success metrics, and communicate roadmap, priorities, and tradeoffs to leadership.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of product management or technical product ownership for complex hardware or hardware-software systems.
• Experience taking a hardware product from requirements through production and delivery to customers.
• Experience in satellite manufacturing or a related field such as aerospace, defense, or high-tech.
• Strong technical grasp of spacecraft or other complex hardware, enough to debate tradeoffs directly with engineers.
• Experience owning a product roadmap and balancing cost, schedule, performance, and customer needs.
• Experience working directly with customers and turning their needs into clear product requirements.
• Strong communication skills, including presenting to executives and customers.
• Comfort making sound decisions with incomplete information in a fast-moving environment.
• Willingness to travel as needed for customer meetings and site visits.
• U.S. Person status is required, because the role needs access to export-controlled data.
• Preferred:
• Experience with configurable or productized hardware platforms, such as product lines with standard interfaces and block upgrades.
• Experience with defense, intelligence, or government customers and procurement.
• Experience in a production-rate manufacturing environment.
• Familiarity with systems engineering, requirements management, and interface control.
• LI-RC1

Conditions

Compensation ranges depend on role, level, location, and market data. Base pay is set case by case based on level, skills, education, experience, technical capability, and internal equity. Full-time hires are also eligible for stock options, plus medical, dental, vision, and a 401(k).

The work falls under U.S. export control rules, including ITAR and the EAR. To be eligible, you must either be a U.S. Person (a U.S. citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident, a refugee admitted under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or someone granted asylum under 8 U.S.C. § 1158), or be able to obtain the required export authorizations from the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Commerce, or another applicable U.S. government agency. Learn more about ITAR at the linked page.

The office is in Playa Vista.

Benefits

• Equity in the company.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage at 100% company cost for you and your dependents, plus $100k of life insurance at no cost.
• Paid time off starting at 15 days of vacation, rising to 20+ days a year, plus 10 paid holidays.
• 401(k) with a 100% match on the first 3% of pay and a 50% match on the next 2%.
• 8 weeks of paid parental leave, plus childcare reimbursement up to $350/day for work-related travel.
• Catered lunch every day and unlimited snacks.
• Monthly office socials, pickleball tournaments, a run club, and family gatherings.
• A fully equipped desk setup with the tools you need to work well.
• Access to a Playa Vista office for in-person collaboration, with flexibility to balance work and life.
• Work alongside people from aerospace, new space, and other advanced industries.