Kodiak is seeking a Defense Technical Program Manager to lead execution of autonomy and platform capabilities supporting defense and government-adjacent customers. This role is responsible for driving complex, cross-functional technical programs that require high rigor, clear accountability, and strong coordination across engineering, product, operations, and external stakeholders.

You will help ensure that defense programs are delivered with the predictability, documentation, and risk management expected in government-facing environments, while still moving with startup speed.

What you’ll do:

• Own end-to-end execution of defense-focused technical programs, from requirements definition through delivery, test, and customer acceptance.
• Partner closely with engineering teams to plan, build, integrate, and validate autonomy and platform capabilities for defense use cases.
• Collaborate with product, operations, and leadership to translate customer, mission, and contractual requirements into clear technical scope and execution plans.
• Lead cross-team technical planning, ensuring requirements are traceable, dependencies are understood, and delivery plans are realistic and defensible.
• Work with product managers to manage scope, tradeoffs, and change control while maintaining delivery commitments.
• Build and maintain integrated program roadmaps that align features, milestones, reviews, and dependencies to schedules.
• Establish and manage program operating rhythms (milestone reviews, risk reviews, readiness checkpoints) appropriate for government-facing programs.
• Identify, track, and mitigate technical, schedule, and integration risks; escalate issues with clear options and recommendations.
• Drive closure of top program risks and quality issues, including prioritization of critical defects and system-level performance gaps.
• Communicate program status, risks, and decisions clearly to internal leadership and, when appropriate, external partners or customers.
• Support technical decision-making by articulating constraints, assumptions, and downstream impacts.
• Improve tools, processes, and documentation practices to support repeatable, auditable execution in defense contexts.

What you’ll bring:

• 3+ years of experience in technical or program management supporting autonomy, robotics, aerospace, defense, or other complex safety-critical systems.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, related technical discipline or equivalent experience.
• Experience managing programs with external customers, contractual milestones, or government-style delivery expectations.
• Strong understanding of software and systems development lifecycles, including integration, verification, and validation.
• Demonstrated ability to operate in environments requiring high rigor, documentation, and accountability.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to align engineering, product, and leadership while maintaining safety and quality standards.
• Interest in defense or government-adjacent applications of autonomous systems.
• Nice to have experience working with government customers, primes, or defense contractors.
    

What we offer:

• Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses
• Excellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and  MetLife (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)
• MetLife Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, & Critical Illness Insurance
• Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies
• Our office is centrally located in Mountain View, CA
• Office perks: dog-friendly, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging
• Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance
• Wellbeing Benefits - Headspace through Cigna, Calm through Kaiser, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health through Cigna, Rula (mental health navigation)
• Fidelity 401(k)
• Commuter, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, HSA
• Various incentive programs (referral bonuses, patent bonuses, etc.)

As Program Manager, Industrial Operations, you will serve as the operational DRI for industrial operating rhythm and cross-functional execution management. You will run the operating rhythm and drive disciplined execution across cross-functional teams, ensuring delivery commitments are supported by clear plans and consistent follow-through.

This role is execution-focused and embedded in the work. You will partner across Operations, Product, Engineering, and customer stakeholders to bring structure to complex operational environments, reduce friction, and improve delivery consistency. You will surface and elevate risks and tradeoffs early while helping teams move from reactive execution to structured, repeatable operating discipline.

If you thrive in fast-moving environments and enjoy turning ambiguity into clarity and momentum, this role is for you.

What You’ll Do:

Execution & Cross-Functional Coordination

• Serve as the operational DRI for execution, ensuring priorities, timelines, and owners are clearly defined and tracked.
• Run the industrial operating cadence (readiness review, program review, weekly cross-functional execution review) with structured follow-through.
• Support scaling industrial operations by improving execution predictability, reducing recurring issues, and increasing operational readiness as program volume grows.
• Partner closely with Product, Operations and Engineering to improve execution efficiency and follow-through across field-facing work.
• Standardize how field issues are captured, prioritized, and communicated across teams to drive timely resolution.
• Support alignment between operational execution and SLA-related commitments, proactively surfacing gaps and risks.
• Surface and elevate key risks, trade offs, and decision points early, ensuring timely alignment and resolution across stakeholders.

Operational Readiness & Process Improvement

• Spend time in the field to understand workflows firsthand and translate insights into durable improvements.
• Coordinate the reduction in manual workflows and recurring breakdowns by implementing lightweight structure that improves consistency.
• Support rollout of standard work, documentation, and repeatable processes that scale with program growth.
• Support service and fleet readiness by reducing Engineering load.

What We’re Looking For:

• 3 to 5+ years of experience in program management, operations, or technical operations roles.
• Experience coordinating cross-functional execution in dynamic or field-based environments.
• Experience working with hardware and software systems in production environments.

Industry Exposure (Nice to Have)

• Exposure to logistics, trucking, operations, or integration-heavy environments.
• Familiarity with autonomous vehicles, autonomous operations, or the broader AV industry.

Mindset

• Strong execution orientation with disciplined follow-through.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and building structure where it does not yet exist.
• Clear communicator who escalates early with context and recommended options.
• Focused on building repeatable systems that improve consistency and scale.

What we offer:

• Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses
• Excellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and  MetLife (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)
• MetLife Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, & Critical Illness Insurance
• Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies
• Office perks: free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen
• Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance
• Wellbeing Benefits - Headspace through Cigna, Calm through Kaiser, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health through Cigna, Rula (mental health navigation) 
• Fidelity 401(k)
• Commuter, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, HSA
• Various incentive programs (referral bonuses, patent bonuses, etc.)

Kodiak is launching driverless operations on public highways by the end of year — and we need the TPM who gets us there.

This is a high-stakes, high-visibility role with one north star: get the truck on the highway, without a driver, safely and on schedule. You'll partner with Systems Engineering, Safety and the Autonomy Teams to drive execution of our Functional Safety (FuSA) and SOTIF programs and the Safety Case that underpins them — keeping every workstream on track on the critical path to driverless highway deployment.

You'll run the cross-functional program cadence, drive how we verify and document software, and push every workstream to move faster without cutting corners. You'll also find smarter ways to execute — including using AI tools wherever they give us an edge.

Launch is the milestone, not the finish line. After we go driverless, the next chapter is expanding our Operational Design Domain — and you'll lead that too.

This role demands someone who is deeply execution-driven, technically fluent in software, willing to learn safety standards, and energized by the challenge of building something with real impact.

In this role, you will: 

Drive to Driverless: ISO 26262 & ISO 21448 Execution

• Manage and drive the critical path from safety goals to driverless highway launch 
• Partner with systems and software leads to adapt features and architecture to meet ISO 26262/ISO 21448 requirements on the path to driverless
• Hold the team accountable: get date commitments and track execution weekly

Support the Safety team in building and maintaining the Safety Case

• Support the Safety team in building and maintaining the Safety Case — the structured argument that our system is acceptably safe for driverless highway operations
• Ensure that the Safety Case stays current as the system evolves, capturing evidence from testing, validation, and hazard analysis
• Own the connection between the Safety Case and every other safety artifact: goals, requirements, verification results, and release decisions
• Make the Safety Case a living, useful document — not a shelf artifact

SW Verification & Documentation

• Ensure the team follows the processes to check software, verify that it works, and document it for safety-critical driverless operations
• Build rigor without bureaucracy — the process should accelerate launch, not slow it down

Innovation & Efficiency

• Use AI tools and automation to move faster — assist engineers with requirements gap analysis, documentation, traceability tracking, reporting, wherever it helps
• Identify and eliminate inefficiencies in the safety and compliance workflow; introduce tooling, templates, and dashboards that scale
• Set the example for how a modern safety program runs

Stakeholder Communication & Leadership

• Deliver crisp, regular updates to leadership — balancing technical depth with executive clarity
• Identify risks proactively and resolve cross-team blockers before they become launch blockers

What you’ll bring: 

• Experience: 5+ years in technical program management, with a track record of shipping safety-critical systems on deadline — not just tracking them
• Background: Bachelor's or Master's in Automotive Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or related field
• Safety-first, Execution-Second: You make the plan, set the dates, and hold people to them. You're comfortable with urgency and thrive when the stakes are high; however, you will help us hold the line if the conditions for launch are not safe enough — this is the most important thing
• Software fluency: You understand how software is built, tested, and verified. You can speak credibly with engineers about SW architecture, verification methods, and what "done" means
• Innovation orientation: You've used AI tools, automation, or novel approaches to get programs done faster. You look for leverage, not just headcount
• Industry knowledge: Experience in autonomous vehicles, automotive, trucking, aerospace, medical devices, or any domain where software safety and reliability are non-negotiable
• Safety standards: Familiarity with ISO 26262, UL 4600, or ISO 21448 (SOTIF) is a plus — but not a requirement. If you're a fast learner who can get up to speed quickly, we'll teach you what you need to know
• Program management toolkit: JIRA/Linear, Lucidchart, or equivalent — you know your tools and use them well
• Communication: You can walk an engineer through a traceability gap and brief a CTO on launch readiness in the same afternoon

What we offer:

• Competitive compensation package including equity and annual bonuses
• Excellent Medical, Dental, and Vision plans through Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, and  MetLife (including a medical plan with infertility benefits)
• MetLife Legal Services, Identity & Fraud Protection, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, Accident Insurance, & Critical Illness Insurance
• Flexible PTO, 10 paid holidays, and generous parental leave policies
• Our office is centrally located in Mountain View, CA
• Office perks: dog-friendly, free catered lunch, a fully stocked kitchen, and free EV charging
• Long Term Disability, Short Term Disability, Life Insurance
• Wellbeing Benefits - Headspace through Cigna, Calm through Kaiser, One Medical, Gympass, Spring Health through Cigna, Rula (mental health navigation) 
• Fidelity 401(k)
• Commuter, FSA, Dependent Care FSA, HSA
• Various incentive programs (referral bonuses, patent bonuses, etc.)