Pixxel - Technical Program Manager - Aerospace Domain

Description :

Role : Program Manager

Employment Type : Full Time

About The Role :

At Pixxel, our Program Managers are the custodians of mission success. They own and drive every aspect of a mission from planning and budgeting, to risk management, reviews, and reporting ensuring that our spacecraft are launched on time, on budget, and in alignment with mission objectives.

This role requires a rare mix of technical understanding, operational excellence, and stakeholder management to keep missions moving seamlessly from concept to successful on-orbit operations.

Key Responsibilities :

Primary Ownership Areas :

- Mission Budgets : Own mission budgets end-to-end, including recalculations, rebalances, reconciliations with finance, and tracking actual spends across the mission lifecycle.

- Risk Management : Own and update the mission's risk register; regularly assess technical and non-technical risks; ensure timely decisions on acceptance/rejection of risks.

- Timelines & Milestones : Define, plan, and own mission timelines in coordination with systems engineering; set milestones and drive teams to achieve them within the cycle; regularly track backlog, open tickets, and deliverables.

- Vendor/Partner Coordination : Track and manage critical path items with vendors/partners; remove roadblocks in vendor selection and execution; ensure timely delivery of external inputs.

- Mission Reviews : Plan and orchestrate reviews SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR, FRR, etc.) to ensure alignment of technical understanding and momentum towards milestones.

- Updates & Reporting : Deliver clear, actionable, and regular updates to internal and external stakeholders; provide decision-enabling reports and summaries.

- Proposals : When not deployed on a live mission, support the development of proposals for upcoming mission opportunities.

Secondary / Support Areas :

- Launch Coordination : Work with launch service providers on schedules, payload integration, and compatibility.

- Technical Oversight : Provide oversight across the mission lifecycle, from design reviews to integration and testing.

- Quality Profile : Partner with QA/QC to flag design/manufacturing issues early, balancing optimization with cost/time efficiency.

- Compliance : Ensure regulatory requirements (frequency, imaging, operations licenses) are met in time.

- Documentation : Support systems engineering and subsystems in maintaining accurate and timely documentation.

- Mission Objectives : Ensure mission objectives and Level 1 requirements are tracked from planning through on-orbit operations, in collaboration with systems engineering.

- Purchasing/Payments/Logistics : Coordinate with finance and supply chain to ensure payments, purchases, and logistics align with mission needs.

Success Criteria :

The performance of a Program Manager will be measured through :

- Quality and timeliness of mission reviews SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR, FRR.

- Adherence to mission budget and timelines.

- Effective risk management and issue resolution.

- Successful launch and on-orbit performance of the spacecraft.

Qualifications & Experience :

- Experience in program/project management, ideally in aerospace, space systems, or other high-complexity engineering domains.

- Strong technical background with the ability to engage meaningfully with engineers across subsystems.

- Proven experience managing budgets, schedules, and risks for multi-stakeholder projects.

- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

- Familiarity with space mission lifecycles (concept, design, manufacturing, integration, testing, launch, operations) is highly desirable.

- PMP/Prince2 or similar certification is a plus.

Benefits :

- Health insurance coverage.

- Unlimited leaves & flexible working hours.

- Role-based remote work and work-from-home benefit.

- Relocation assistance.

- Professional Mental Wellness Services.

- Creche facility for primary caregivers (limited to India).

- Employee Stock Options for all hires.