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Salary: USD 116,800 - 160,600 / annual
Rocket Lab is seeking a Senior Program Manager I to lead high-volume satellite production for the Flatellite program at their Long Beach headquarters. This is a high-ownership role where you will own rate, yield, unit cost, and strategic program decisions from prototype maturity through full-rate production.
Key Responsibilities:
- Command the lifecycle of satellites from concept through qualification, full-rate production, and flight, owning the technical roadmap that grows the team's core capabilities
- Lead multiple active programs simultaneously, make architectural decisions with Chief Engineers, and navigate critical trade-offs in design-for-manufacturing, takt time, line-of-balance, and rate-readiness versus reliability
- Build and develop a high-performing team culture where strong people take smart risks, the best idea wins regardless of source, and intelligent misses are treated as the cost of moving fast
- Manage high-stakes subcontracts and suppliers as strategic partners, protecting schedule and margin
- Synchronize cross-functional teams across manufacturing, supply chain, integration, and test to clear roadblocks and maintain speed and quality
- Serve as primary point of contact for assigned commercial constellation operators and partner with Business Development & Strategy on proposals and technical narratives
Rocket Lab's Space Systems team has enabled more than 1,700 missions, ranging from interplanetary exploration and in-space manufacturing to national security and defense initiatives. The team has built spacecraft, payloads, and components for missions to the Moon and Mars, working with partners including NASA, the Space Development Agency, and the U.S. Space Force.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in physics, math, science, or other technical discipline
- 5+ years of aerospace program management experience
- Demonstrated track record of owning a technical program, product, or team end-to-end and carrying it across the finish line under real pressure (hiring on what you've shipped, not years logged)
- Evidence of moving real hardware and software from prototype toward high-rate production, with quantified yield, throughput, and cost gains
- Understanding of takt time, line-of-balance, design-for-manufacturing, and learning-curve economics
- Experience identifying tooling, supply-chain, or yield risk and neutralizing it before it slows the line
- U.S. citizenship with ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance
Nice-to-Have Qualifications:
- Proven playbook for transitioning low-volume prototypes into full-rate production without sacrificing mission reliability
- Deep experience scaling satellite, aerospace, or analogous complex hardware production at volume
- Repeatable record of bending unit cost down at rate without sacrificing reliability
- Master's degree in Engineering, Operations, or related field
- Fluency with Systems Engineering, trade studies, interface control, requirement integrity, and tools like Jira, Confluence, and ERP/MRP systems
- Multiple program cycles or 8+ years in aerospace/defense (though hardest thing shipped is weighted over count)
