Director, Program Management, Air Systems

Job DetailsJob Location: Apium - San Diego, CA 92121Salary Range: $176,000.00 - $205,000.00 SalaryPosition Summary




Apium Swarm Robotics (ASR) is revolutionizing swarm autonomy software for air, surface, undersea, and ground vehicles operating across dual-use commercial and defense environments. Our systems are deployed on real platforms, tested in the field, and delivered to customers operating in complex, uncertain, and safety-critical conditions.

We do not build research prototypes or slideware. Our software is integrated into real vehicles, tested in the field, and delivered to customers who depend on operational reliability, speed of execution, and mission relevance. We prioritize performance over hype.

ASR systems represent the next phase in autonomy: collaborative swarming. These are not like pre-programmed drones for light shows. We are creating real-time cooperative management that lets one operator control dozens to hundreds of vehicles in real-time with the ease of controlling a single vehicle. As such, this role requires comfort with responsibility, ambiguity, and operational accountability.

ASR seeks a Director of Program Management for Air Systems to own the execution, requirements, and test strategy behind Apium’s family of unmanned air systems. This is a senior, cross-functional leadership role that sits at the intersection of product management, test and evaluation, and program and event execution — accountable for making sure ASR’s air systems are well-specified, exhaustively tested, and delivered through events and demonstrations that meet both mission and margin objectives.

On the product side, you will own the product requirements documentation for all of ASR’s air systems — working with ASR leadership to ensure requirements reflect company vision and customer expectations, and are detailed enough to be actioned directly by the engineering team. On the test side, you will develop and own the test strategy for current and future air systems across software and hardware, spanning software-in-the-loop (SITL), hardware-in-the-loop (HITL), and real-world flight testing, partnering with DevSecOps, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Manufacturing to ensure coverage across all modalities.

On the program side, you will own execution of both paid events and strategic demonstrations, tracking cost and revenue at the event level to ensure gross profit margin targets are met. You will also serve as ASR’s coordination point with Red Cat’s global product management organization, documenting and tracking Apium’s dependencies on other Red Cat air platforms and tying them together in Jira so that cross-program commitments are visible and managed.

This position is an individual contributor at the director level today, with an explicit pathway to build a program management team as ASR scales. The right candidate is comfortable operating strategically — owning requirements, test strategy, and margin accountability at a functional level — while personally executing the work and building the processes the next several hires will inherit. Travel may be required for events, demonstrations, and flight testing.




Essential Duties and Responsibilities





Own end-to-end execution of paid events and strategic demonstrations, establishing integrated plans spanning scope, schedule, milestones, dependencies, and budget, with direct accountability for event-level cost, revenue, and gross-margin performance
Own test strategy and execution across the full development lifecycle for current and future air systems, including system-level verification and validation, test phasing, and prioritization across SITL, HITL, ground, and flight-test environments
Coordinate cross-functional test execution across DevSecOps, Electrical, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Engineering to ensure comprehensive coverage of every hardware and software modality, managing test readiness and risk at each gate
Develop, own, and publish product requirements documents and roadmaps for ASR’s air systems, serving as the voice of the customer and translating operational needs and leadership vision into a prioritized product direction
Decompose ambiguous, complex requirements into concrete, engineering-actionable specifications, partnering hands-on with engineering to scope features and drive execution through the full product lifecycle
Serve as ASR’s coordination point with Red Cat’s global product management organization, documenting and actively managing cross-platform dependencies and interlocking commitments in Jira
Establish disciplined, auditable change-management and requirements-traceability processes that remain responsive to short-horizon, high-priority business needs
Capture and distill feedback from customers and partners to identify new business development and product-offering opportunities, feeding them into ASR’s product roadmap and growth strategy
Establish and lead