Anduril Industries

Principal Technical Program Manager, Infrastructure Engineering

Anduril Industries$220K — $292K *
Aerospace & Defense
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years in technical program management, engineering, or leadership in cloud infrastructure and distributed systems.
  • Experience as a strategic advisor or Chief of Staff to engineering executives.
  • Hands-on expertise in Operational Excellence (OE), Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and High Availability (HA) frameworks.
  • Track record of leading large-scale incident mitigation and automated resilience initiatives.
  • Broad technical knowledge in IT/infrastructure domains, including cloud architectures and enterprise security.
  • Strong communication skills for translating technical risks into executive action.
  • Ability to operate autonomously in high-pressure, mission-critical environments.

Responsibilities

  • Lead strategic planning and execution as Chief of Staff to the department head.
  • Drive operational excellence across cloud, platform, networking, and datacenter functions.
  • Define and implement frameworks to achieve high service levels and quality standards.
  • Identify automation opportunities to reduce manual dependencies in operations.
  • Oversee post-incident reports and root-cause analyses to improve reliability.
  • Manage high-stakes engineering programs spanning hybrid infrastructure and manufacturing networks.
  • Coordinate responses to enterprise-wide risks with cross-functional technical teams.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive benefits package available at low to no cost.
  • Strong support for health and recovery needs.
  • Focus on employee well-being and career development opportunities.
  • Competitive equity grants commonly included in offers.
Full Job Description
ABOUT THE ROLE

We are seeking a Principal Technical Program Manager (TPM) reporting to the Head of Infrastructure Engineering to lead mission-critical, high-visibility engineering initiatives across the company. In this role, you will operate at the intersection of technical depth, executive leadership, and operational execution.

Specifically, you will function in three primary capacities as Chief of Staff (~15%) to the department head-driving strategic planning, org-wide operating cadences, executive alignment, and unblocking critical internal engineering efforts. Simultaneously, you will own InfraEng's Operational Excellence (OE) charter(~25 - 35%) across Cloud, Platform, Networking, and Datacenter/On-Prem functions, driving rigor throughout the organization to ensure enterprise-grade reliability and QOS paces our audacious expansion and growth. You will also directly quarterback high-visibility flagship programs (~50-60%) -ranging from critical reliability and resilience efforts, cross-cutting architectural migrations, and manufacturing enablement.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
1. Chief of Staff Function & Strategic Leadership (~15%)

Curating the rhythm that produces speed, accuracy, executive sponsorship and trust:
  • Partner directly with the Head of Infrastructure Engineering to translate organizational vision into prioritized technical roadmaps, resource allocations, and cross-team execution plans.
  • Execute and continuously tune the department's operational rhythm, including executive business reviews, operational reviews, and C-level briefings spanning complex engineering initiatives.
  • Drive cross-functional alignment and unblock dependencies across InfraEng in order to deliver value greater than the sum of individual teams/capabilities.
  • Spearhead strategic initiatives, vendor and service provider restructurings, and cost-optimization programs to maximize efficiency without compromising security or deployment velocity.
2. Operational Excellence (OE) & Resilience (~25 - 35%)

Defining, measuring and continuously improving the processes and technologies that achieve unreasonably high SLOs, SLAs and QoS.
  • Define, launch, scale and measure Operational Excellence (OE) processes and mechanisms across all networking, cloud, platform, and datacenter functions.
  • Identify and scope tooling and automation opportunities that continuously lessen human intervention as a success dependency.
  • Institute systemic availability frameworks, observability and incident recovery strategies, and automated zonal failure detection and mitigation standards.
  • Lead high-leverage operational forums (e.g., Weekly Infrastructure Operations Reviews), engineering rigor inspections, post-incident reports and root-cause remediations.
  • Design and implement (organization and/or enterprise-wide) process, standards, common ways of working where none exist today.
3. Flagship Special Programs (~50%)

Single Threaded Owner (STO) and organizational API for initiatives such as:
  • Directly execute high-stakes, time-critical engineering programs spanning hybrid infrastructure, Factory Systems and Manufacturing networks, sovereign defense enclaves, multi-cloud user enablement.
  • Quarterback strategic responses to systemic, enterprise-wide risks, orchestrating cross-functional technical remediations at scale.
  • Drive technical readiness and architecture validation for complex customer scenarios and rapid Department of Defense / warfighter scenario builds on modern infrastructure.
  • Champion foundational modernization programs, including Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Software Defined Networking (SDN), least-privilege automation.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
  • 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 the 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.


US Salary Range

$220,000-$292,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you're supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.

About Anduril Industries

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company that develops advanced systems for the military. The company was founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey, Trae Stephens, and Matt Grimm, and has since grown to become a major player in the defense industry. Anduril's products include autonomous drones, surveillance systems, and other advanced technologies that are designed to enhance military capabilities. The company has received significant funding from investors and has partnerships with several major defense contractors. Anduril is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Learn more about Anduril Industries
Size
200 employees
Industry
Founded
2017

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