Customer Engagement Manager – Avionics (SW & HW Development)

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Customer Engagement Manager – Avionics to lead customer interactions and program execution for avionics software and hardware development projects. This role acts as the bridge between customers and internal engineering teams, ensuring clear communication, accurate requirement alignment, and successful on-time delivery of aerospace-grade solutions.

The ideal candidate brings strong avionics domain expertise, hands-on experience with DO-178B/C, DO-254, and robust program management capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

1. Customer Relationship & Communication

Serve as the primary customer contact throughout the project lifecycle.

Understand customer needs, expectations, and constraints, and convert them into actionable engineering requirements.

Lead regular customer touchpoints—technical reviews, schedule discussions, risk assessments, and milestone updates.

Address escalations with structured communication and root-cause clarity.

2. Program & Delivery Management

Own end-to-end delivery of avionics software and hardware development programs.

Ensure alignment between internal teams (SW, HW, Systems, QA, Certification) and customer requirements.

Develop, track, and optimize program schedules, milestones, and delivery roadmaps.

Ensure deliveries comply with DO-178B/C, DO-254, ARP4754A, and customer-defined standards.

3. Requirements & Scope Management

Collaborate with engineering teams for requirement clarification, prioritization, and change control.

Manage baselines, CRs, impact analysis, and approval workflows.

Maintain traceability from requirements to design, implementation, verification, and certification artifacts.

4. Technical Understanding & Support

Demonstrate strong knowledge of avionics systems, LRUs, embedded software, and hardware components.

Support technical discussions on architecture, integration constraints, certification impacts, and performance.

Coordinate internal technical reviews and prepare teams for customer-facing sessions.

Technical Skills:

Strong understanding of avionics SW/HW development processes.

Deep experience with:

DO-178B/C (Software Certification)

DO-254 (Hardware Certification)

ARP4754A / ARP4761

Knowledge of embedded systems, RTOS, microcontrollers, FPGA/ASIC fundamentals.

Exposure to integration labs, HIL/SIL environments, and verification processes.

Project & Customer Management Skills

Proven experience in customer-facing roles within aerospace/avionics.

Strong stakeholder management, negotiation, and expectation-setting skills.

Proficiency with project management and ALM tools (MS Project, Jira, Confluence, etc.).

Ability to lead technically complex discussions with cross-functional teams.

Soft Skills

Excellent written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.

Ability to work under pressure with certification-driven timelines.

Strong analytical, problem-solving, and conflict-resolution capabilities.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electronics, Electrical, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, or related discipline.

8–15 years of experience, including 3–5 years in customer engagement or project/program management.