Technical Program Manager – Space & AI Systems
Company: NALEJ Corporation
Department: Program Management / Mission Delivery
Reports To: Chief Executive Officer, Chief Technology Officer, or designated executive
Location: Arlington, Virginia / Hybrid, with travel to customer and partner locations as required
Employment Type: Full-Time
Clearance: Active Secret required; active Top Secret or TS/SCI strongly preferred
Position Summary
NALEJ Corporation is seeking a highly capable Technical Program Manager to lead the execution and delivery of complex programs involving space systems, satellite technologies, artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, and other advanced mission capabilities.
This role will serve as the primary center of gravity for assigned programs, translating technical objectives, contractual requirements, customer priorities, and organizational commitments into executable plans and measurable outcomes. The Technical Program Manager will coordinate across engineering, product, operations, business development, customers, subcontractors, and executive leadership to ensure programs remain aligned, technically credible, financially responsible, and positioned for successful delivery.
The ideal candidate combines strong program management discipline with sufficient technical fluency to engage engineers, data scientists, AI/ML practitioners, space-system specialists, government customers, and senior executives. This individual does not need to be the program’s principal engineer but must understand the technology well enough to identify risk, challenge assumptions, facilitate technical decisions, and communicate program status accurately.
Experience supporting the Department of the Air Force, U.S. Space Force, Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, or related federal mission environments is highly desirable.
Key Responsibilities
Program Execution and Delivery
- Lead assigned programs from initiation and planning through execution, deployment, customer acceptance, and closeout.
- Convert statements of work, performance work statements, technical objectives, and customer requirements into integrated program plans.
- Establish and maintain program schedules, milestones, deliverables, dependencies, decision points, and acceptance criteria.
- Drive day-to-day execution across technical and nontechnical workstreams.
- Ensure program commitments are delivered on schedule, within scope, within budget, and to the required level of technical and operational quality.
- Develop recovery plans when performance, schedule, cost, staffing, or technical issues place delivery at risk.
- Maintain clear accountability for actions, deliverables, decisions, and program outcomes.
- Lead program reviews, milestone reviews, delivery readiness reviews, and executive status briefings.
Technical Program Leadership
- Coordinate multidisciplinary teams supporting space, satellite, AI, machine learning, neural-network, cloud, data, software, cybersecurity, and systems-integration efforts.
- Translate between technical teams, government customers, business leaders, and operational stakeholders.
- Facilitate technical tradeoff discussions involving performance, cost, schedule, integration, security, scalability, and mission impact.
- Understand model development and deployment lifecycles, including data preparation, training, validation, testing, integration, monitoring, and operational sustainment.
- Support programs involving predictive analytics, computer vision, autonomous systems, edge computing, sensor data, mission data processing, or other AI-enabled capabilities.
- Identify dependencies involving hardware, software, data, networks, interfaces, infrastructure, security authorization, and external mission systems.
- Ensure technical decisions and changes are documented and reflected in program plans, schedules, budgets, and customer communications.
- Partner with technical leads to establish measurable performance criteria and verify that solutions meet operational requirements.
Space and Satellite Mission Support
- Support programs involving satellite systems, space-domain awareness, command and control, ground systems, payloads, data exploitation, communications, mission planning, or related space capabilities.
- Coordinate activities across space, ground, data, software, network, integration, test, and operational workstreams.
- Understand the relationships among satellite platforms, payloads, ground segments, user segments, mission data, and supporting digital infrastructure.
- Engage credibly with stakeholders familiar with Air Force, Space Force, Department of Defense, or Intelligence Community mission systems.
- Help align technical development with operational use cases, mission threads, government requirements, and end-user needs.
- Coordinate integration, testing, demonstrations, exercises, pilots, and transition-to-operations activities.
Customer and Stakeholder Management
- Serve as a primary program interface for government customers, mission partners, subcontractors, vendors, and internal executives.
- Build trusted relationships through transparency, responsiveness, technical credibility, and reliable execution.
- Translate customer priorities into clear actions for internal delivery teams.
- Communicate program progress, risks, decisions, dependencies, and resource needs in a direct and timely manner.
- Prepare and deliver executive-level briefings, program reviews, technical updates, and customer-facing status reports.
- Manage expectations while protecting NALEJ’s contractual, financial, technical, and operational interests.
- Escalate significant issues early, with clearly defined options and recommended actions.
Financial and Contractual Management
- Manage program budgets, labor plans, forecasts, burn rates, subcontractor costs, and resource allocations.
- Monitor actual performance against contractual scope, schedule, staffing, and financial targets.
- Partner with finance, contracts, business development, and executive leadership to maintain program health.
- Identify potential scope changes, out-of-scope requests, funding constraints, and contract risks.
- Support contract modifications, proposals, estimates, task-order responses, and follow-on growth opportunities.
- Ensure program execution aligns with contractual requirements and applicable government acquisition expectations.
- Maintain accurate documentation supporting invoicing, deliverable acceptance, staffing, and customer reporting.
Risk, Quality, and Governance
- Establish and maintain program risk, issue, action, and decision tracking.
- Identify technical, schedule, financial, contractual, staffing, security, and customer risks before they materially affect delivery.
- Assign accountable owners and drive mitigation actions through closure.
- Implement practical program-management standards without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
- Ensure documentation, configuration management, change control, quality assurance, and reporting processes are appropriate for the program.
- Support cybersecurity, compliance, testing, verification, validation, and government authorization activities as applicable.
- Capture lessons learned and improve repeatable delivery practices across NALEJ programs.
Team Leadership and Coordination
- Lead through influence across matrixed teams that may include employees, contractors, subcontractors, vendors, researchers, and customer personnel.
- Establish clear roles, responsibilities, priorities, operating rhythms, and performance expectations.
- Coordinate staffing needs with functional leaders and executive management.
- Identify resource gaps and recommend hiring, subcontracting, prioritization, or schedule adjustments.
- Promote collaboration, urgency, accountability, and candid communication.
- Address execution problems directly while maintaining constructive relationships across teams.
- Mentor project managers, program analysts, technical leads, and other team members as appropriate.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, data science, information systems, physics, aerospace, business, program management, or a related field.
- Approximately 7 or more years of progressively responsible experience in technical program management, engineering program management, systems integration, government contracting, or mission delivery.
- Demonstrated success managing complex technical programs with multiple stakeholders, dependencies, and workstreams.
- Experience supporting programs involving one or more of the following:
- Space or satellite systems
- Artificial intelligence or machine learning
- Neural networks or advanced analytics
- Software or systems engineering
- Cloud, edge, or data platforms
- Command-and-control or mission systems
- Working knowledge of AI/ML development and deployment lifecycles.
- Ability to understand and communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and nontechnical audiences.
- Experience managing schedules, budgets, risks, deliverables, staffing plans, and customer expectations.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience briefing senior executives or government leaders.
- Experience working in a government-contracting, aerospace, defense, intelligence, or highly regulated technical environment.
- Demonstrated ability to bring structure, discipline, and accountability to rapidly evolving programs.
- Ability to travel based on program and customer requirements.
- U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain and maintain the required security clearance.
Preferred Qualifications
- Master’s degree in engineering, computer science, data science, aerospace, systems engineering, business administration, or a related discipline.
- Active Top Secret or TS/SCI security clearance.
- Direct experience supporting the U.S. Space Force, U.S. Air Force, Space Systems Command, Space Operations Command, Space Training and Readiness Command, Air Force Research Laboratory, National Reconnaissance Office, or related organizations.
- Understanding of Air Force or Space Force acquisition, capability-development, test, operational, or sustainment processes.
- Experience with satellite ground systems, mission-data processing, space-domain awareness, remote sensing, communications, command and control, or on-orbit operations.
- Experience delivering AI/ML capabilities into operational or mission environments.
- Familiarity with machine-learning operations, model validation, data pipelines, cloud environments, DevSecOps, or continuous integration and deployment.
- Experience supporting federal research and development, Small Business Innovation Research, Other Transaction Authority, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, task-order, or cost-plus programs.
- Familiarity with earned-value concepts, integrated master schedules, work-breakdown structures, and government program reviews.
- Project Management Professional, Program Management Professional, Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act, Agile, Scrum, or comparable certification.
- Experience managing subcontractors, university partners, research organizations, or distributed technical teams.
- Familiarity with cybersecurity, Authority to Operate, Risk Management Framework, classified environments, or cross-domain integration.
Core Competencies
- Mission Orientation: Understands that program execution must produce usable operational outcomes, not simply completed activities.
- Technical Fluency: Can engage technical specialists, understand dependencies, and ask informed questions without attempting to replace the technical lead.
- Execution Discipline: Establishes clear plans, owners, milestones, and decision points and drives them through completion.
- Strategic Judgment: Connects daily execution decisions to customer priorities, contractual commitments, financial performance, and long-term growth.
- Accountability: Identifies problems early, communicates them directly, and owns the process of resolving them.
- Customer Credibility: Builds trust with government and industry stakeholders through transparency, responsiveness, and reliable performance.
- Communication: Distills complex information into clear decisions, recommendations, and executive-level updates.
- Adaptability: Performs effectively in a growing organization where priorities, technical approaches, and customer requirements may evolve quickly.
- Collaborative Leadership: Aligns multidisciplinary teams without relying solely on formal authority.
- Business Awareness: Understands the relationship among technical delivery, contract performance, customer satisfaction, profitability, and follow-on growth.
Initial Performance Priorities
During the first 90 to 180 days, the Technical Program Manager will be expected to:
- Establish an accurate baseline for assigned program scope, schedule, budget, staffing, deliverables, risks, and contractual requirements.
- Implement a consistent operating rhythm for program execution and customer communication.
- Clarify roles, decision authorities, technical ownership, and delivery accountability across the program team.
- Develop a reliable integrated program schedule and milestone structure.
- Identify the program’s most significant technical, contractual, financial, staffing, and customer risks.
- Improve visibility for NALEJ executives into program health, resource needs, financial performance, and delivery risk.
- Strengthen coordination among program management, engineering, product, contracts, finance, and business development.
- Deliver near-term milestones while establishing scalable processes for continued execution and growth.
Measures of Success
Success in this role will be measured by:
- Achievement of contractual and technical milestones.
- On-time and within-budget program delivery.
- Accuracy of program forecasts and status reporting.
- Early identification and effective mitigation of program risks.
- Customer confidence, satisfaction, and acceptance of deliverables.
- Quality and operational relevance of delivered capabilities.
- Effective coordination across technical and business functions.
- Program financial performance and resource efficiency.
- Successful transition of prototypes or developmental capabilities into demonstrations, pilots, production, or operational use.
- Contribution to contract extensions, follow-on work, and broader customer opportunities.
Working Environment
NALEJ operates in a fast-moving, mission-focused environment requiring initiative, adaptability, sound judgment, and personal accountability. The Technical Program Manager must be comfortable operating with senior executives, government customers, engineers, data scientists, operators, and business teams.
This role is best suited for a leader who can create structure without creating unnecessary process, understand technology without overstating technical expertise, and drive execution without losing sight of the customer’s mission.
Equal Employment Opportunity
NALEJ Corporation is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable law.