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Salary: USD 160,000 - 220,000 / annual
Mach Industries, founded in 2023, is a rapidly growing defense technology company with ~350 employees focused on developing next-generation autonomous defense platforms. The company operates with startup agility while delivering scalable, decentralized defense systems for the U.S. and its allies.
You will serve as the Engineering Program Manager (EPM) for a vehicle program, acting as the Chief Engineer's execution counterpart. Your core mission is to own the programmatic mechanics—schedule tracking, risk and issue management, review cadence, and cross-functional coordination—so that technical leadership can focus on engineering decisions rather than administrative overhead.
Key responsibilities include:
- Own day-to-day program mechanics: schedule tracking, risk/issue registers, review cadence, and cross-functional coordination logistics
- Establish how the program tracks and reports schedule, risk, dependencies, and key metrics/KPIs
- Own the timeline for formal design reviews (SRR, CODR, PDR, CDR), while content ownership remains with the Chief Engineer and Responsible Engineers
- Track overall program cost and budget in partnership with Finance
- Surface schedule and resourcing risk to the Chief Engineer and Department Heads as soon as it becomes visible in tracking data, not just at scheduled reviews
- Coordinate cross-functionally between Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Finance, and Staffing
- Provide consolidated, accurate program status updates to company leadership, Growth team, and customers
- Coordinate closely with the Capability Development Manager (CDM) to keep customer-facing commitments aligned with internal schedules
- Route scope changes and resourcing requests to relevant Department Heads for review before reflecting in the schedule
- Jointly escalate schedule or resourcing risks that cannot be resolved between technical and departmental leadership, providing supporting data
This role requires comfort with delivering bad news early, strong cross-functional coordination, and the ability to translate detailed program tracking into concise narratives for leadership. You will be expected to work extended hours and weekends as needed.
ITAR Requirements: Applicant must be a U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, Refugee, or Asylee, or be eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws (EAR and ITAR).
REQUIREMENTS:
- Experience in a program or project management role on hardware, engineering, or technical products, ideally with multiple concurrent workstreams and cross-functional dependencies
- Demonstrated ability to build and maintain schedule, risk, and dependency tracking that technical leadership trusts and uses
- Comfort surfacing bad news early—flagging schedule slip or risk as soon as visible rather than smoothing it over
- Strong cross-functional coordination skills across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and finance stakeholders
- Clear written and verbal communication with ability to translate program-tracking detail into concise status narratives for leadership
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Background in aerospace, defense, or regulated hardware industry with formal design-review gates (SRR, CODR, PDR, CDR or equivalents)
- Experience partnering directly with a technical architecture owner (Chief Engineer or equivalent) as execution counterpart, not owning technical decisions
- Experience coordinating with customer-facing counterpart (CDM, TAM, or customer program manager) to align external and internal timelines
- Familiarity with formal risk/issue register tooling and structured schedule-tracking methods (critical path, earned value, etc.)
- Prior experience navigating scope or resourcing conflicts jointly with technical and departmental leadership
