The end-to-end space company delivering reliable launch services, spacecraft, satellite components. Backed by Bessemer and Khosla.
About the role
Based at Rocket Lab's global headquarters in Long Beach, CA, you are the program authority for high-volume satellite production. You own rate, yield, unit cost, and strategic program decisions from prototype maturity through full-rate production. This is a high-ownership role: anyone can build one exquisite satellite — you'll build hundreds, on rate, on cost, on a learning curve that bends faster than the competition's — and you'll be the person the line runs on.
What they're looking for
- Bachelor’s degree in physics, math, science, or other technical discipline
- 5+ years of program management experience
- A demonstrated track record of owning a technical program, product, or team end to end and carrying it across the finish line under real pressure, we hire on what you've shipped, not years logged
- Evidence you've moved real hardware and software from prototype toward high-rate production, with quantified yield, throughput, and cost gains
- Understanding of the nuances of takt time, line-of-balance, design-for-manufacturing, and learning-curve economics
- Experience identifying tooling, supply-chain, or yield risk and neutralizing it before it slows the line
More about this role
Rocket Lab is the end-to-end space company building rockets, spacecraft, and critical subsystems that keep the world connected, protected, expand humanity’s reach to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. We move fast, build real hardware for meaningful missions, and make the impossible routine. Come shape the future with us.
At Rocket Lab, we’re not just launching rockets - we're building the future of space. Our Space Systems team builds everything from complete spacecraft and precision payloads to the components and subsystems that allow them to thrive in space, including solar panels, flight software, star trackers, optical systems, separation systems, radios, and more.
Our Space Systems team has enabled more than 1,700 missions, ranging from interplanetary exploration and in-space manufacturing to national security and defense initiatives. The team has built spacecraft, payloads, and components for missions to the Moon and Mars, working with partners including NASA, the Space Development Agency, and the U.S. Space Force. Whether it’s a single high-performance spacecraft, constellation, or vertically integrated components that help missions get to space, our world-class Space Systems...
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