Director, Technical Program Management

The Company

Astra’s mission is to Improve Life on Earth from Space® by creating a healthier and more connected planet. Today, Astra offers one of the lowest cost-per-launch dedicated orbital launch services of any operational launch provider in the world, and one of the industry’s first flight-proven electric propulsion systems for satellites, Astra Spacecraft Engine™. Astra delivered its first commercial launch to low Earth orbit in 2021, making it the fastest company in history to reach this milestone, just five years after it was founded in 2016. Astra (NASDAQ: ASTR) was the first space launch company to be publicly traded on Nasdaq.

The Team

Technical Program Managers give Astra a competitive edge by driving the development and delivery of Astra's internal and external products and services at a market-leading pace. Sitting on the product line leadership team and working hand-in-hand with functional leaders across the organization, the TPMs leverage the best of traditional program management techniques and agile principles, providing focus for the entire organization through radical prioritization. The TPM looks beyond the horizon to identify and address threats before they become problems and continuously improves our processes to drive the right decisions with the right data, at the right time.

The Opportunity

As the Director of Technical Program Manager for Astra Spacecraft Engines (ASE), you will own the timely development and delivery of Astra’s propulsion business and keep the business on track in building the next generation of space services. You will work hand-in-hand with the General Manager, Systems Engineers, Hardware and Software Engineering leads, Supply Chain & Operations Leads, Product Managers, and many other stakeholders to define schedules, dependencies, and risks. You will identify the critical path, and then manage priorities, trade-offs, integration points, and other cross-team coordination. You will own major program decisions, communicate program status and priorities to a range of stakeholders across the company, and also contribute to the development of longer-term roadmaps in collaboration with the Product Management team.

Overall, you will be an excellent leader, fearless organizer, and a versatile player/coach for Astra's community, serving as the glue holding together our complex, multi-disciplinary product and services development effort as we develop and rapidly scale our Space Products business.

How You’ll Fulfill Your Mission

• Provide insight on program status, critical path, risks, and opportunities to de-risk or accelerate our schedule, based on building and maintaining a detailed view of our program schedule with inputs from all teams. Use these insights to prioritize resource, make strategic decisions, and keep us on track to an aggressive but achievable timeline.
• Partner with a full spectrum of cross-functional stakeholders in your program, including Product, Engineering and Operations – to help ensure that we are building the right thing, building it right, testing it right, managing interfaces and integration well, and operating it correctly.
• Align teams around complex techno-economic decisions that need to be made along the way, applying a DACI process to convene stakeholders, get the right inputs, make the right decisions, and communicate them clearly to the right people at the right time.
• Coach our teams in using the Scrum framework and following Agile product development principles
• Deliver on-time and on-budget product releases by planning, partnering, and driving execution effectively. Surface blockers and resolve them as soon as possible, pulling in stakeholders across the company as needed.
• Inspire our teams to pull together towards our common goals and successfully deliver the next generation of space services, realizing Astra’s vision of improving life on Earth from Space, one step at a time.
• Plan and execute aggressive but achievable schedules for delivering upcoming releases of your product and delivery on existing engineering commitments. Coordinate interfaces and integration points with all other development teams. Provide input to ASE Leadership and Astra Product team to help build a long-term roadmap for Astra's launch system.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in program/project management for complex product development programs
• Technical background, with demonstrated ability to engage on technical topics - typically demonstrated by an Engineering degree or equivalent technical experience Excellent leadership, organization, and communication skills
• Comfort with ambiguity, and ability to create structure where needed
• Thorough understanding of agile and waterfall management techniques

Desired Multipliers

• Experience in Aerospace or equivalent industry

ITAR Requirements: This position requires compliance with U.S. Government space technology trade restrictions, specifically the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and additional regulations governing satellite, launch vehicle, missile, and other related technologies. All jobs restricted by these regulations will be contingent upon the applicant’s status as a documented U.S. Person or their ability to receive a trade license from the cognizant government agency; in addition to any required company background checks and in compliance with applicable U.S. and California laws. Similarly, positions requiring the ability to work on government contracts or a security clearance are also contingent upon the applicants ability to receive the appropriate clearance and be allowed to work on U.S. government contracts.

You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Astra, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

San Francisco Applicants: Astra will consider applicants with arrest and conviction records (criminal histories) in a manner consistent with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.