Staff Project Engineer

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Build and maintain the integrated program schedule for assigned programs, translating requirements and architecture into a sequenced task and dependency network across software, FPGA, hardware, and manufacturing workstreams, including programs with significant ambiguity or no established planning precedent.
• Identify, track, and manage cross-team and cross-discipline dependencies, ensuring downstream work is not blocked and upstream work is sequenced to unblock it.
• Own the risk and issue register for program technical execution: identify schedule risk early, drive mitigation plans, and escalate before problems become program-level surprises.
• Partner with Software, FPGA, and Hardware Tech Leads, including Senior and Staff-level leads, to translate architecture and design decisions into actionable, estimated, and sequenced engineering tasks and milestones, and influence their approach where current practice falls short.
• Track progress against plan at the team and individual task level; identify slipping work early and drive re-planning, re-sequencing, or reallocation with the responsible leads.
• Manage third-party and subcontractor deliverables: define delivery expectations and acceptance criteria, track schedule commitments, and hold external partners accountable to dates and quality.
• Serve as the primary technical execution point of contact between Software Engineering, FPGA/Hardware Engineering, Manufacturing/Test, and Program Management for assigned programs.
• Drive program-level coordination and milestone reviews focused on schedule health, blockers, and cross-team dependencies.
• Support the transition from development and test into manufacturing release, ensuring engineering deliverables (documentation, test results, build artifacts) meet manufacturing entry criteria on schedule.
• Report program technical status, schedule health, risks, and forecasts to engineering leadership and Program Management on a regular cadence.
• Define and improve program execution practices (estimation quality, dependency capture, definition of done, escalation thresholds) across Software, FPGA, and Hardware engineering, and mentor Project Engineers working on individual programs.
• Use modern planning tools and agentic AI tools to build lightweight automation and dashboards that accelerate schedule tracking, dependency visualization, and status reporting.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience driving complex, multi-disciplinary engineering programs to schedule under heavy ambiguity: sequencing dependencies, managing risk, and holding cross-functional teams accountable to dates without an established playbook to follow.
• Strong technical background in software or systems engineering, enough to evaluate technical estimates, architecture trade-offs, and integration risk. Hands-on coding is not a primary job function.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior technical peers (Senior and Staff-level engineers) and change how a program or organization plans and executes, without formal authority over them.
• Proven ability to manage external subcontractors or vendors against schedule and quality commitments.
• Strong organizational, planning, and cross-functional communication skills, with comfort driving alignment among engineers, technical leads, and program or business stakeholders.
• Experience running contract-driven programs on a waterfall or stage-gate schedule (critical path method, earned value management, milestone and gate reviews), with the judgment to apply Agile/Scrum practices on the specific programs where they fit.
• Experience with planning and tracking tools suited to waterfall or stage-gate program environments (e.g., MS Project, Smartsheet) and demonstrated ability to build lightweight automation or dashboards, including with AI/agentic tools, to accelerate execution tracking.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience in satellite communications, RF/modem systems, embedded or FPGA development, or hardware-software integration programs.
• Experience in a regulated defense/aerospace manufacturing environment (ITAR, DFARS, AS9100) and familiarity with hardware-to-manufacturing release processes.
• Prior experience as a software engineer or technical lead before transitioning into program or technical execution roles.
• Experience using AI coding or agent tools to build internal tooling such as schedule trackers, dependency visualizers, or status report generators.

Education

Experience

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