Senior Program Manager II - Laser Communications

Location: Long Beach, California, United States. This is an onsite role based at hirify.global’s global headquarters. U.S. Person status is required for ITAR/EAR compliance.

Base salary: $134,300–$201,350 USD annually. Total compensation, including equity: $166,800–$258,625 USD annually.

Company

hirify.global is an end-to-end space company developing rockets, spacecraft, optical communication terminals, and other critical space systems for commercial, civil, and national-security missions.

What you will do

• Lead multiple laser communication terminal programs from award through qualification, rate production, delivery, and on-orbit checkout.
• Own customer relationships, delivery commitments, schedules, milestone reviews, acceptance, risk, and overall program health.
• Coordinate with chief engineers and cross-functional teams on link performance, data rate, SWaP, environmental qualification, and terminal interoperability.
• Identify and resolve yield, supplier, production-capacity, and test-capacity risks with Operations, Supply Chain, and Product teams.
• Manage program startup, baselining, financials, contract changes, export-control obligations, customer acceptance, and closeout across U.S. and European sites.
• Partner with Business Development, Strategy, and Product on proposals, pricing, configuration, and customer requirements while mentoring program leaders.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Physics, or Mathematics.
• Working knowledge of free-space optical or RF communications, including link budgets, pointing, acquisition and tracking, modems, coding, and environmental qualification.
• At least 8 years of experience in space, aerospace, or photonics hardware programs, including multiple complete program cycles.
• Demonstrated success delivering complex hardware from prototype through qualification and rate production to demanding customers.
• Experience managing program cost, estimate at completion, customer contract changes, schedule, risk, and acceptance.
• U.S. Person status is required for ITAR/EAR compliance; the ability to obtain a security clearance is preferred.

Nice to have

• Experience with optical inter-satellite links or optical ground and airborne terminals.
• Experience scaling optical or electro-optical hardware from low-volume production to high-rate manufacturing.
• Constellation program experience and primary customer-interface responsibility with constellation operators or satellite primes.
• Experience leading geographically distributed programs and managing export-control and dual-use compliance.
• Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Optics/Photonics, Physics, or a related field; experience with Jira, Confluence, ERP/MRP, systems engineering, and AI tools.

Culture & Benefits

• Employee stock purchase program with a 15% discount and equity as part of total compensation.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage, including HMO, PPO, and a zero-cost HDHP option with an HSA contribution.
• Paid vacation, sick time, holidays, parental leave, disability and life insurance, and a 401(k) with company match.
• Onsite fitness centers where available, subsidized EV charging, gym memberships, snacks and beverages, and employee discounts.
• Fast-paced, collaborative environment focused on complex space missions, tight deadlines, accountability, and teamwork.