Engineering Program Manager (Defense)

Location: Huntington Beach, California, United States. The role requires eligibility to work with U.S.-controlled technology under ITAR and may require extended hours and weekends as needed.

Salary: $160,000–$220,000 USD per year, base salary only; equity and performance-based incentives may also be offered.

Company

hirify.global is a defense technology startup founded in 2023 that develops next-generation autonomous defense platforms and scalable, decentralized defense systems for the United States and its allies.

What you will do

• Own day-to-day program mechanics for a vehicle program, including schedule tracking, risk and issue registers, review cadence, dependencies, KPIs, and cross-functional coordination.
• Own the tracking and reporting timeline for SRR, CODR, PDR, and CDR while the Chief Engineer and Responsible Engineers retain content ownership.
• Track program cost and budget in partnership with Finance.
• Surface schedule and resourcing risks early and jointly escalate unresolved risks with the Chief Engineer and Department Heads using supporting data.
• Coordinate Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Finance, and Staffing activities, including scope changes and additional resourcing requests.
• Provide consolidated program status updates to company leadership, the Growth team, and customers, coordinating with the Capability Development Manager to align external commitments with internal schedules.

Requirements

• Experience in program or project management for a hardware, engineering, or technical product, ideally with multiple concurrent workstreams and cross-functional dependencies.
• Ability to build and maintain schedule, risk, and dependency tracking that technical leadership trusts and uses.
• Ability to surface schedule slips and risks early rather than deferring them until formal reviews.
• Strong cross-functional coordination experience across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and finance stakeholders.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills, including translating detailed program tracking into concise leadership status updates.
• Availability to work extended hours and weekends as needed.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. lawful permanent resident, refugee, asylee, or eligible to obtain required U.S. Department of State authorizations for ITAR-controlled information.

Nice to have

• Background in aerospace, defense, or another regulated hardware industry with formal design-review gates such as SRR, CODR, PDR, and CDR or equivalents.
• Experience partnering directly with a Chief Engineer or equivalent technical architecture owner as an execution counterpart.
• Experience coordinating with a customer-facing or account-management counterpart such as a CDM, TAM, or customer program manager.
• Familiarity with formal risk and issue register tools and structured schedule methods such as critical path and earned value.
• Experience resolving scope or resourcing conflicts jointly with technical and departmental leadership.

Culture & Benefits

• Startup agility and a focus on rapid innovation, advanced manufacturing, national security, and autonomous defense systems.
• Performance-based incentives and equity participation may be included.
• Healthcare, dental, vision, retirement savings, and paid time off are offered.
• Professional development funding supports continuing education, training, and career growth.
• Compensation practices emphasize market competitiveness, transparency, and equitable pay.