What are the responsibilities and job description for the Technical Program Manager position at Hernshead Recruitment?
This is an opportunity for an experienced technical leader to drive execution across a defense company's most complex product development and production-support programs. Sitting at the intersection of engineering, business development, production, supply chain, quality, and leadership, this role brings structure and visibility to fast-moving technical efforts without adding unnecessary bureaucracy. The ideal candidate is an engineer who has moved into program leadership and is ready to own schedule, risk, and cross-functional coordination on programs that matter to national defense customers.
Job Responsibilities:
- Lead project kickoff activities in coordination with engineering, business development, production, and leadership
- Translate customer commitments and internal objectives into executable project plans
- Track schedules, milestones, risks, dependencies, deliverables, and action items across active engineering programs
- Coordinate cross-functional communication between engineering, production, supply chain, quality, and business stakeholders
- Identify resource conflicts, schedule risks, long-lead items, technical blockers, and decision points early
- Maintain project dashboards, status reports, risk registers, decision logs, and meeting notes
- Facilitate program reviews and ensure follow-up actions are assigned, tracked, and closed
- Develop lightweight program management practices, project templates, and kickoff processes
- Partner with engineering leadership to prioritize work and protect teams from uncontrolled scope growth
- Support proposal planning, customer updates, and internal leadership briefings
Experience Required:
- Technical degree (Engineering or related discipline) or equivalent hands-on engineering background
- 3 years managing technical projects, engineering programs, hardware development efforts, or complex cross-functional initiatives
- Experience in defense, aerospace, robotics, electronics, or hardware product development
- Demonstrated ability to coordinate work across engineering and non-engineering teams
- Strong organizational skills managing multiple priorities, schedules, and stakeholders
- Clear communicator across technical and non-technical audiences
- Track record identifying risks, dependencies, and blockers, and driving them to resolution
- Comfortable operating in a fast-paced environment with incomplete information
- Strong ownership mindset, able to build structure where process is still maturing
- Preferred: experience supporting both development and production-transition efforts
- Preferred: familiarity with requirements tracking, design reviews, ECO processes, configuration management, or production readiness reviews
- Preferred: Microsoft 365, Teams, Planner, Project, Jira, or Smartsheet
- Preferred: experience in a small or rapidly growing engineering organization
- Preferred: PMP, DAWIA, Agile, or similar certification
- Preferred: experience supporting government customers, prime contractors, or defense product deliveries