Senior Software Product Manager, Strategic Defense

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Strategic Defense team at Anduril is at the forefront of incubating and maturing AI-native offerings for the integrated air and missile defense domain. We're the architects of mission autonomy and resilient mesh architectures, delivering scalable software solutions that meet some of the most urgent national security needs. By working hand-in-hand with elite teams in AI, Edge Hardware, Space Solutions, Networking, and Test Engineering we craft cutting-edge, end-to-end systems that redefine mission success for major strategic capabilities.

ABOUT THE JOB

Anduril’s Strategic Defense business line is seeking a talented Product Manager to join our rapidly growing team in Washington, DC or Seattle, WA. In this role, you will be responsible for shaping and delivering features and services critical to the next generation of autonomous air and missile defense systems. You will develop domain expertise and perform thorough discovery to devise innovative autonomy capabilities ready to meet unprecedented defense needs. These capabilities will be robust, reliable, and controlled, while appropriately leveraging the latest in AI/ML technologies and rigorous approaches to AI safety. If you are someone who thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, is comfortable owning execution end-to-end without a dedicated program manager, and has a passion for contributing to national security, then this role is for you!

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Own the product roadmap for key autonomy capabilities with attention to both backend services and interfaces supporting UI-based oversight, explainability, and control. You will translate high-level strategic objectives and urgent warfighter needs into detailed, actionable product roadmaps and specifications.
• Define autonomy behavior and the human-machine interfaces for it — decision authority, operator overrides, engagement constraints, and the safety and controls guardrails that govern automated decision-making.
• Support software execution for this capability in conjunction with engineering: sequence workstreams, surface and resolve cross-team dependencies and blockers, track delivery against plan, and hold engineering, test, and program stakeholders accountable to schedule.
• Proactively communicate roadmaps, execution status, and goals to stakeholders and manage expectations of delivery. Escalate large trade offs and necessary decision points as needed.
• Operate as the owner of the autonomy capability area. Work with business development, proposal, marketing, and compliance leads to communicate product capabilities externally. Participate in large-scale customer exercises and demonstrations.
• Work hands-on to deliver new capabilities across the lifecycle of the product, from initial release and onboarding, through day-to-day improvements. Validate and experiment along the way, acting as the voice of the user throughout.
• Work in coordination with engineering and test stakeholders to define and monitor key metrics to measure success, including autonomy performance, safety, and controls behavior in operationally relevant conditions.
• Interview and iterate with defense operators and subject matter experts, develop insights from such interactions, and propagate user needs clearly through the organization.
• Develop relationships to bridge business and technical worlds. Build tech alongside prolific engineers and designers, and then zoom out to work with business development, operations, customer success, marketing, and finance teams in order to ensure success. Along the way, you’ll help define and drive product team culture and best practices.
• Partner closely with test engineers and program teams to devise rigorous testing scenarios that validate key functionality, demonstrate operational utility, and drive rapid iteration cycles.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Currently possesses and is able to maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance (Top Secret clearance preferred)
• 3-5 years in software product management, ideally in highly technical areas which may include autonomous systems, AI/ML products, developer solutions, etc.
• Working fluency in autonomy and controls concepts — state estimation, planning, and closed-loop control — sufficient to reason about system behavior and its limits with engineers
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• A foundational understanding of back-end web technologies & distributed systems to consider capabilities and limitations
• Demonstrated aptitude for prototyping solutions, including through AI code generation
• Proven ability to decompose and organize technically complex projects in a structured approach
• Demonstrated ability to drive software execution directly — planning, dependency management, and schedule accountability
• Aptitude for working with internal and external stakeholders, across a wide range of technical comfort
• Ability to travel for discovery and testing purposes (surges up to 50%)

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Active U.S. Secret security clearance
• Hands-on experience shipping autonomous systems, robotics, guidance/navigation/control, or mission autonomy software
• Familiarity with mathematical optimization problems (e.g. assignment, resource allocation, scheduling, trajectory optimization) and the tradeoffs between optimality, runtime, and operator trust
• Experience with AI safety, assurance, or verification and validation for learning-enabled or automated decision-making systems
• Background in operations research, optimization, or applied mathematics through experience or education
• Defense, national security, or aerospace domain familiarity through experience or education
• Experience working in a developer focused product team (for example, in cloud services, SDK development, or internal platform infrastructure)
• Experience supporting test design and execution for technically complex, combined hardware/software systems