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Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering - National Security (Defense)

Skydio· Operations
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Remote$172k - $215kFull-timePosted 4w ago

About the role

Senior Manager leading the Solutions Engineering team focused on National Security and Defense, supporting DoD agencies and the Intelligence Community with upstream requirements, evaluations, field trials, integration, and unit-level enablement across Skydio UAS solutions. Remote role with ~50% travel, including international travel.

Responsibilities

  • - Hire, onboard, coach, and retain the Solutions Engineering team with clear ownership across agencies and components.
  • - Set technical quality bar for demos, trial plans, integration designs, RFI/RFP responses, and customer-facing docs.
  • - Own capacity planning and tradeoffs for the segment; manage deployment tempo to balance field presence and retention.
  • - Define and execute the technical strategy for pursuits, evaluation/field trial design, and narrative differentiation.
  • - Serve as senior technical escalation point for pursuits, deployments, and customer issues; be in the field when it matters.
  • - Partner with Sales on pipeline, forecast, and account planning; support land-and-expand from pilots to programs of record.
  • - Shape upstream requirements, engage program offices and operators early, and align solicitations with actual capabilities.
  • - Build and maintain accreditation fluency (ATO, cross-domain, NDAA compliance, Blue UAS, etc.) and familiarity with programs of record, OTAs, SBIR, IDIQs, and unit-level O&M.
  • - Guide integration with TAK, MANET, secure radios, C2/fires apps, and mission-planning environments.
  • - Manage airworthiness, airspace considerations, BVLOS, waivers, COAs, and installation approvals.
  • - Design tests for contested/degraded environments (EW, GPS-denied, comms-limited) to avoid overpromising.
  • - Represent customer needs to Product/Engineering; develop enablement content, reference architectures, and reusable assets.

Qualifications

  • - 5+ years in a technical, customer-facing role supporting defense customers.
  • - 5+ years in federal government or defense in a discipline relevant to UAS (operations, maintenance, ISR, T&E, acquisition, or training).
  • - 1+ years leading a technical team (formal or as tech lead); first-time managers with leadership in operational environments will be considered.
  • - Understanding of defense acquisition process from requirements through evaluation, award, and fielding.
  • - Technical depth in at least one core area: UAS platforms, RF/datalinks, EO/IR/sensor payloads, software integration/APIs, cloud/data architecture, or gov IT security.
  • - Ability to operate within a Sales organization, owning quota and deal strategy while judiciously allocating technical resources.
  • - Excellent written and verbal communication with ability to brief operators, program managers, and general officers.
  • - Willingness to lead by example to resolve customer situations.

Skills

Required:Team leadership and people management

Benefits

  • - Paid vacation, sick leave, holiday pay, and 401K savings plan.
  • - Competitive base salary plus stock options and comprehensive benefits.
  • - Company-provided health insurance eligibility for regular full-time employees.
  • - Potential relocation assistance for eligible roles.
Last updated Sep 24, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Skydio

A family of flying robots.

AI-powered autonomous drones for Drone as First Responder (DFR), critical infrastructure inspection, tactical ISR, site security, surveying and mapping

DronesAutonomous SystemsInspectionSecurityMappingPublic SafetyNational Security
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