Job brief: Senior Program Manager II - Space Sensing & Domain Awareness (TS/SCI)

What JoRoute checked · Checked by JoRoute

• Listed on Rocket Lab's own job board. JoRoute does not take listings from job ads or recruiters.
• First seen by JoRoute 2026-11-04 (3 days ago); last confirmed on the board 2026-11-07.
• The apply link opens job-boards.greenhouse.io, the address Rocket Lab's board gives for this job.
• No other listing with this title and place on this board in the last 90 days.
• No layoff notices (WARN) under this name in the state files JoRoute reads.

What the listing says · Employer's own words, not checked

• Pay: $153,000 to $229,500 a year
• Job type: Not stated
• Where: Long Beach, CA · RL Headquarters
• Posted: 2026-10-28

What the job asks · Employer's own words, not checked

Level: Manager. The title says "Manager".

Must have

• Bachelor’s degree in physics, math, science, or other technical discipline
• 8+ years of aerospace program management experience
• Active TS/SCI clearance
• Advanced Technical Credibility: A Master's degree in Engineering, Optics, or a related field that lets you peer-review sensing roadmaps.
• Systems & Toolchain Fluency: You speak Systems Engineering, trade studies, interface control, requirement integrity, and use Jira, Confluence, and ERP to keep program health visib…
• Depth of Reps: Multiple program cycles or 8+ years in aerospace/defense, sharpen the edge, but we weight the hardest thing you've shipped over the count.

Main duties

• Lead the Team of Teams: Run multiple active programs at once, make sound architectural calls with Chief Engineers, navigate the hardest trade-offs in pointin…
• Build the Bench: Grow a culture where strong people take smart, healthy risks and the best idea wins, no matter who it comes from, we back bold calls and tre…

Lines copied from the posting, not rewritten. "Preferred" or "nice to have" items are not listed as must-haves.

How it compares · Compared by JoRoute from listings

• Typical listed pay for project and program manager jobs in California: $160k a year (125 listings, 35 employers). This listing is 20% higher.
• Across Rocket Lab's 452 open listings, 24% of those with a posting date were first posted more than 60 days ago. How Rocket Lab hires

What nobody outside the employer knows · Not known

• Whether the role is already filled or on hold: employers often leave listings up.
• How many people applied, and who reads the applications.
• Where in the published range an offer would land.

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Next steps

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• 28 more project and program manager jobs within 25 miles, on the job map with pay.
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