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Salary: USD 220,000 - 292,000 / annual
Anduril Industries, a defense technology company, is seeking a Principal Technical Program Manager (TPM) to lead mission-critical infrastructure engineering initiatives. Reporting to the Head of Infrastructure Engineering, you will operate at the intersection of technical depth, executive leadership, and operational execution across three primary capacities.
Chief of Staff Function (~15%): Partner directly with the Head of Infrastructure Engineering to translate organizational vision into prioritized technical roadmaps and resource allocations. Execute and continuously tune the department's operational rhythm, including executive business reviews, operational reviews, and C-level briefings. Drive cross-functional alignment and unblock dependencies across Infrastructure Engineering. Spearhead strategic initiatives, vendor restructurings, and cost-optimization programs.
Operational Excellence & Resilience (~25-35%): Define, launch, scale and measure Operational Excellence processes across networking, cloud, platform, and datacenter functions. Identify and scope tooling and automation opportunities to reduce human intervention dependencies. Institute systemic availability frameworks, observability and incident recovery strategies, and automated zonal failure detection standards. Lead high-leverage operational forums including Weekly Infrastructure Operations Reviews, engineering rigor inspections, and post-incident root-cause remediations. Design and implement organization-wide processes and standards.
Flagship Special Programs (~50%): Directly execute high-stakes, time-critical engineering programs spanning hybrid infrastructure, Factory Systems and Manufacturing networks, sovereign defense enclaves, and multi-cloud user enablement. Quarterback strategic responses to systemic, enterprise-wide risks. Drive technical readiness and architecture validation for complex customer scenarios and Department of Defense warfighter scenario builds. Champion foundational modernization programs including Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Software Defined Networking (SDN).
The role requires deep technical literacy across cloud computing architectures, networking (LAN/WAN/routing/SD-WAN), compute/virtualization/Kubernetes, and enterprise security/IAM. You will translate complex technical risk and architectural trade-offs into actionable executive-level business decisions and thrive in high-tempo, ambiguous, mission-critical environments with complete autonomy.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 10+ years of technical program management, engineering or engineering leadership experience driving complex, high-impact programs across distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and enterprise platforms
- Demonstrated experience acting as a strategic advisor, Principal TPM, or Chief of Staff counterpart to executive engineering leaders, managing cross-organizational strategy, headcount/resource prioritization, and executive reporting
- Deep hands-on expertise building and running Operational Excellence (OE), Site Reliability (SRE), or High Availability (HA) frameworks across multi-region cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) and hybrid/datacenter environments
- Proven track record leading large-scale incident mitigation, failure testing, and automated resilience initiatives with aggressive recovery time objectives
- Broad technical literacy spanning core IT/infrastructure domains: cloud computing architectures, networking (LAN/WAN/routing/SD-WAN), compute/virtualization/Kubernetes, and enterprise security/IAM
- Exceptional communication skills with ability to translate deep technical risk and architectural trade-offs into actionable executive-level business decisions
- Ability to thrive in high-tempo, ambiguous, mission-critical environments with complete autonomy
- Must be a U.S. Person and be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government Top Secret security clearance
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Direct experience supporting defense technology, aerospace operations, mission control/constellation reliability, or government contracts
- Experience designing and executing enterprise-wide security, IAM/ABAC modernization, or agentic AI/autonomous workflow controls at scale
- Background in streamlining regulated SDLC/CI-CD workflows, compressing deployment cycles through risk-based engineering automation
- Active U.S. Secret or Top Secret/SCI clearance
