Senior Program Manager

About the Team  

STR’s Analytics Division develops novel solutions to the most challenging national security problems through advanced analytics. Our teams consist of motivated individuals with degrees in engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics, and data science. We use our expertise and creativity to take innovative ideas from conception to everyday use by our customers.  

The Intelligence Tools and Applications (ITA) Group in the Analytics Division researches and develops novel analytic capabilities for operational users. We build solutions that make a difference in sensemaking and counter sensemaking, using data in new and interesting ways to support our customers’ missions. 

The Role:    

We are looking for a leader who is passionate about collaborating with high-performance teams to solve unique national security challenges with novel technologies. An ITA Program Manager is accountable for the ultimate success of the product and is responsible for ensuring that what is developed and delivered to customers is operationally valuable. In this role, a Program Manager will be expected to demonstrate: 1) expertise on the customer’s challenges, desires, workflows, and acquisition processes, 2) expertise on the product and the leveraged technologies, 3) understanding of STR’s business and the role the product plays, and 4) deep knowledge of the market and industry, including trends, customer expectations and competition. The Program Management role requires creativity and strong intellectual curiosity in applying new technologies to solve customer problems. Because the technologies we bring to market often represent the state of the art and may involve process changes, additional key skills for the Program Manager include persistence and strong communication to drive cross-functional collaboration. Finally, as the Program Manager is a key role within the ITA group, they will play an important part in a variety of additional functions including business strategy, business development, and growing the team.  

This role will take advantage of STR’s flexible, hybrid environment – when the work does not require use of STR’s facilities, you are welcome to work remotely. 

What You Will Do:   

• Join an active, distributed team, working across a growing set of projects  
• Work ~75% time at the customer site in northern VA, and the rest of the time at STR’s Arlington, VA office (with flexibility to work from home): the split work location is designed to support strong engagement with our customers, STR’s on-site team members, and STR’s technical and business operations teams in Arlington, VA and Woburn, MA  
• Engage directly with end users, build strong customer relationships, and constantly seek to apply new technology to solve real customer problems  
• Empower the designers, engineers, and scientists to act with a meaningful degree of autonomy by developing and clearly communicating a unifying product vision and strategy – both STR employees and our subcontractors  
• Understand all stakeholders, the constraints in which those stakeholders operate, and create customer solutions that work within the constraints of the business  
• Foster team collaboration to embrace the give and take between software functionality, user experience, and enabling technology  
• Continuously improve the product discovery process to establish compelling value and identify key risks  
• Hold high-integrity commitments to deliver viable solutions that work for the customer and business  
• Work in a fast-paced environment to enable successful contract execution, including financial planning and control, contract coordination, and subcontract coordination (in partnership with STR’s Business Operations teams)     

Who You Are:  

• Active Top Secret security clearance with full scope polygraph, for which U.S citizenship is needed by the U.S government
• U.S. Defense or Intelligence Community expert with operational knowledge  
• Aptitude for collaborating with stakeholders across a wide range of technical comfort levels  
• Experience in guiding technical teams to translate mission needs into production software while identifying and tracking risk 
• Demonstrated success decomposing a problem into addressable component parts  
• Experience in project management for development initiatives from inception to functional prototypes to production-level systems 
• Able to understand, track, and communicate status for software deployment to operational networks 
• Comfortable working with data and complex analysis: both business operations tools (e.g., Excel) and our custom analytics and intelligence tools  
• Entrepreneurial spirit and eager to engage in technical marketing and business development   

Even Better:  

• Master's degree in a technical field or MBA  
• Experience in managing a DevOps or Agile environment 
• 2+ years experience in product program management / product ownership for an operational production software implementation, for projects 5-15 FTE  
• Deep enough understanding of full-stack software technologies to consider capabilities and limitations  
• Knowledge of software development best practices and tools  
• Familiarity with methods for software delivery and containerization: e.g. Docker, Kubernetes 
• Experience writing technical proposals, or leading proposal efforts  
• Working knowledge of DoD or IC mission and acquisition processes