Product Manager

Mount Indie is seeking a Product manager to support a small but growing govcon here in San Diego. In this role, you set the product vision and ensure its execution. From shaping a multiyear roadmap to refining sprint-level stories, you translate mission needs, tech realities, and financial constraints into a coherent strategy—and drive cross-functional squads to deliver capability that matters. Your canvas spans market sensing, portfolio stewardship, agile backlog management, and go-to-market orchestration. You are both strategist and executor, toggling seamlessly between executive conversations and daily dev standups. 

What you’ll do:  

Vision & Roadmap 

• Define and maintain a 3-year product vision aligned to mission impact and revenue goals. 
• Ideate new FTEN functions to support the warfighter (CRAD, IR&D, CRADA) and to increase FTEN market discrimination 
• Maintain a rolling 12-month roadmap with quarterly KPI/KPPs; ensure PI objectives trace back to strategy. 

Market & Mission Sensing 

• Track DoW capability gaps, SBIR trends, and competitor moves; translate insights into differentiated features and value propositions. 
• Engage directly with warfighters, acquisition offices, and partners to validate priorities. 

Design Thinking 

• Exposure to design thinking methods such as problem framing, ideation, prototyping, and iteration. 
• Ability to translate user needs, feedback, or pain points into practical solutions or improvements. 

Communication 

• Ability to explain ideas clearly, ask thoughtful questions, and share updates in a timely manner.  
• Comfortable adapting communication style for different audiences, such as peers, managers, customers, or cross-functional partners.  
• Experience presenting ideas, documenting decisions, and summarizing complex information. 

Financial Stewardship 

• Own FTEN execution including cost and schedule of defined Initiatives/Epics/Jira Tickets 
• Contributes to the cost model for sustainment and feature development 
• Negotiate with Programs for Initiative definition and funding of Features within the Technology Jira Project 
• Report progress to stakeholders (cost/schedule) based on execution metrics/tools (IMS, JIRA, etc). Recommend COAs based on progress metrics. 
• Defend investment proposals and tradeoffs with executive staff. 

Lifecycle & Compliance Governance 

• Gatekeep epic approval through SAFe portfolio Kanban; shepherd MVPs from TRL 3 up. 
• Ensure compliance with Cyber and Zero Trust accreditation requirements. 
• Always have a functional fully featured FTEN system (Golden SUT) 
• Governance of 15 FTE matrixed engineers spanning software, network, cyber, design, and systems. 

Backlog & Iteration Execution 

• Own and continuously groom the Team Backlog; balance new capability, tech debt, and compliance. 
• Author crisp Initiatives/Epics/User stories with clear acceptance criteria; approve/reject based on Definition of Done. 
• Lead iteration planning, daily syncs, demos, and acceptance to ensure alignment with PI objectives. 

Stakeholder Alignment 

• Run quarterly Product Syncs with executives, engineers, and finance leads. 
• Serve as first-line liaison with Systems Engineering, Cybersecurity, QA, and Ops to resolve impediments. 

Go-to-Market Enablement 

• Align capture plans, pricing strategies, and demo assets with Growth & Capture (G&C). 
• Empower teams to pitch coherent, compelling product stories that withstand source-selection scrutiny. 

Continuous Improvement 

• Track and act on metrics: velocity, lead time, defect escape rate, and portfolio ROI. 
• Drive Inspect & Adapt actions across teams and trains. 

We are looking for: 

• Education: B.S. or higher in an engineering field (Computer Science, Software Engineering, Math, Physics, Electrical Engineering, or related technical discipline). 
• Experience: 12+ years of progressive experience in technical leadership, program management, or technical product management. 
• Mission-Driven Mindset – Passion for supporting national security missions and advancing warfighter capabilities through user-focused software design. 
• Systems Thinking – Ability to translate complex operational requirements into scalable, maintainable software architectures. 
• Agile Execution – Strong experience managing Agile development cycles, backlogs, and sprint planning within multi-disciplinary teams. 
• People Development – Demonstrated success managing engineers and fostering career growth while driving accountability and performance. 
• Cross-Functional Communication – Comfortable collaborating across engineering, product, and customer-facing teams to align vision and execution. 
• Experience working with defense, aerospace, tactical communications, networking, C5ISR, edge compute, mission systems, or other mission-critical technology. 
• Demonstrated ability to translate customer and operator needs into product requirements, roadmaps, and execution priorities. 
• Clearance & Citizenship: * US Citizen. 

 Nice to have: 

• Active US Secret or Top Secret clearance. 
• Strong technical fluency with IP networking, software systems, RF communications, tactical data links, distributed systems, or network management concepts. 
• Experience with tactical radios, MANETs, SATCOM, datalinks, software-defined networking, network orchestration, edge compute, or disconnected/degraded/intermittent/limited-bandwidth environments. 
• Experience with AI/ML-enabled network optimization, autonomous network management, or decision-support tools. 
• Experience with productizing capabilities that began as customer-specific engineering or R&D programs. 
• 5+ years in a dedicated technical leadership or architectural role focused on software.