Senior Program Manager, Saronic
Shipbuilding
Plus opportunities for performance-based bonuses and equity
Unmanned vehicles for maritime security
Be an early applicant
Unmanned vehicles for maritime security
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
Plus opportunities for performance-based bonuses and equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To redefine maritime superiority.
Role
Who you are
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Naval Architecture, or a related technical field
- 9+ years of experience in program management of large-scale production, shipbuilding, or complex defense development programs. Program Management experience of Unmanned Surface Vessels highly desirable
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to interface confidently with technical and non-technical audiences
- Demonstrated ownership of cost, schedule, and scope on programs of significant size and complexity
- Experience managing production at rate, including supply chain, build sequencing, and delivery of large or complex hardware systems highly desirable
- Proven ability to manage government or defense customers, contracts, and deliverables
- Willingness to travel up to 25% of the time
- Secret security clearance eligibility required, active preferred
- Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer
- Occasional standing and walking within the office
- Manual dexterity to operate a computer keyboard, mouse, and other office equipment
- Visual acuity to read screens, documents, and reports
- Occasional reaching, bending, or stooping to access file drawers, cabinets, or office supplies
- Lifting and carrying items up to 20 pounds occasionally (e.g., office supplies, packages)
- Can own a large, complex program end-to-end while balancing production throughput against mission flexibility
- Can connect production and configuration decisions to overall program cost, schedule, and mission outcomes
- Can translate evolving customer requirements into disciplined, executable program plans
- Leadership of high-performing, cross-functional, and distributed teams
- Established track record of clear, consistent, and correct communications with peers, leaders, and external stakeholders
- Comfort guiding customers through ambiguous or evolving requirements and shaping actionable solutions
What the job involves
- Saronic Technologies is seeking a Program Manager to own the execution and delivery of major shipbuilding programs
- Saronic’s shipbuilding capacity exists at our shipyard in Franklin, LA and Port Alpha in Brownsville, TX. The PM will manage large-scale production and is accountable for cost, schedule, scope, and customer outcomes from contract award through delivery and sustainment
- Saronic’s ships are built at production scale and fielded across a wide and evolving range of complex missions
- The Program Manager must pair deep expertise in large-scale shipbuilding and rate production with an instinct for modular kits, payloads, and mission-package integration—understanding how a common hull is configured, re-configured, and sustained to meet diverse customer needs. This role owns the balance between production throughput and mission flexibility
- The Program Manager serves as the primary customer-facing relationship owner. Partnering closely with the internal Saronic growth, engineering, production and quality teams, the right candidate brings the customer fluency to manage government stakeholders and contracts
- The PM should also have the acumen to make technical decisions aligned to the customer needs and contract requirements, and the programmatic discipline to deliver a large, complex platform at scale
- Own end-to-end execution of a commercial and/or Government Shipbuilding program, holding accountability for cost, schedule, scope, and quality from award through delivery and sustainment
- Serve as a leader and owner of the customer contract, deliverables, milestones, CDRLs, and contractual obligations
- Build and maintain the integrated program plan, aligning productions scheduled, engineering milestones, and integration timelines to customer commitments
- Drive risk and opportunity management across the program, escalating and resolving issues that threaten cost, schedule, or performance
- Report program health, forecasts, and decisions to Saronic leadership and customer stakeholders
- Partner with the Franklin and/or Port Alpha production team to plan and execute rate production large Ships (autonomous or manned), from long-lead procurement through hull construction, outfitting, and delivery
- Monitor build sequencing, work breakdown, and production milestones to protect throughput while meeting quality and acceptance criteria
- Monitor and mitigate production risks—supply chain, labor, tooling, and facility constraints—unique to large-vessel shipbuilding
- Coordinate with Quality and Production to ensure build configurations and acceptance events meet customer and contractual standards
- Own the configuration strategy for the ship class across a variety of mission packages, kits, and payloads on a common production hull
- Partner with Mission Package Integration Managers to plan integration of bespoke and commercial-off-the-shelf kits into the production and delivery flow
- Balance production standardization against mission-driven variance, protecting throughput while enabling flexibility
- Ensure integration timelines, dependencies, and configuration baselines are reflected in the master program plan
- Capture mission-package lessons learned and feed them back into production and product roadmaps
- Serve as the primary point of contact for customers, managing expectations, requirements, and relationships across the program lifecycle
- Elicit and clarify evolving mission needs, translating them into actionable program and technical direction
- Lead program reviews, delivery events, and technical exchanges with government stakeholders, operators, and evaluators
- Deliver clear, concise program updates and after-action reporting to leadership and customer audiences
- Direct and synchronize a cross-functional program team spanning Production, Engineering, Software, Mission Services, and Forward Deployed Engineering
- Partner with Technical Program Managers to align technical execution with programmatic commitments
- Make and defend tradeoff decisions across capability, schedule, cost, and risk
- Drive disciplined configuration management across vessels, kits, payloads, and software versions
Our take
Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) are vehicles which operate at the surface of the water without a crew and can be used in oceanography and environmental monitoring, as well as for cargo transport or military applications. Saronic is a company developing USVs to have enhanced awareness and improved survivability, to be employed in maritime security.
Saronic's vehicles are designed to be smarter than previous models, with capabilities including adaptive path planning, multichannel communication, and the ability to better identify and track targets through a combination of passive sensors and advanced algorithms.
Saronic is clearly charting an ambitious course for the future of maritime innovation too. Through its strategic partnership with NVIDIA, the company has embedded cutting-edge AI and edge computing directly onto its autonomous vessels. By combining Saronic's shipbuilding and autonomy expertise with NVIDIA's advanced computing, the company is delivering smarter platform while modernizing US shipbuilding for the era of autonomy. With this momentum, Saronic should be able to scale its next-generation maritime solutions and lead the transformation of a critical industry.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Mar 2026
$1.8bn
SERIES D
Feb 2025
$600m
SERIES C
Total funding: $2.6bn
Company HQ
South Manchaca, Austin, TX
Leadership
Dino Mavrookas
(Co-Founder & CEO)Board Member of the Navy SEAL Foundation, and former Entrepreneur In Residence at 8VC. Spent 11 years as a Chief Petty Officer in the US Navy, from 2004 to 2015.
Rob Lehman
(Co-Founder & CCO)Founder of 9 Line Solutions, who is also a Communications Officer in the US Marine Corps. Previously the Chair and CEO of Temeku Technologies.
Vibhav Altekar
(Co-Founder & CTO)Former Advisor and Angel Investor for Standard Metrics and Chef Robotics. Spent 4 years working in Machine Learning at Anduril Industries.
Doug Lambert
(Co-Founder & COO)Former VP of Engineering at Terradepth. Before that, worked at Liquid Robotics for a total 8 years, ultimately as Head of Engineering.
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