Senior Director, Sensors and Autonomous Systems

Job Description 

• Senior Director, Sensors and Autonomous Systems

• Full Time

• Hybrid / Onsite 

The Senior Director, Sensors and Autonomous Systems is the leader responsible for the strategy, financial performance, growth, and execution of the Sensors and Autonomous Systems portfolio within Accelint Intelligent Systems.

This position leads Program Managers, Directors, and multidisciplinary teams responsible for developing, integrating, producing, testing, fielding, and sustaining unmanned vessels, mission payloads, autonomy software, low-SWaP-C sensors, and related mission technologies. The Senior Director ensures programs meet profit and loss performance and ensures programs achieve their revenue, margin, cash, schedule, technical, quality, and customer commitments.

The Senior Director also serves as the principal bridge between growth and execution. Working with mission architects, growth leaders, capture teams, technical leaders, customers, and Program Managers, this leader ensures qualified opportunities are matured into executable programs. This includes validating that proposed solutions are operationally relevant, technically achievable, appropriately priced, contractually executable, and supported by credible staffing, facilities, supplier, integration, and test plans.

Duties & Responsibilities

Portfolio Strategy and Leadership

• Establish and implement the strategy for the Sensors and Autonomous Systems portfolio in alignment with Accelint Intelligent Systems priorities, customer mission needs, and company growth objectives.
• Provide executive leadership across unmanned vessels, payload integration, autonomy software, low-SWaP-C sensors, and associated mission systems.
• Lead, develop, and hold accountable Program Managers, Directors, and portfolio leaders responsible for program execution, capability development, integration, production, test, and customer delivery.
• Translate company strategy into portfolio priorities, investment decisions, technology roadmaps, organizational requirements, and measurable operating objectives.
• Ensure the portfolio operates as an integrated business rather than as a collection of independent programs, products, or technical capabilities.
• Establish clear decision rights, performance expectations, and operating interfaces among Program Management, Engineering, Product, Operations, Growth, Finance, Program Controls, Contracts, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Test, and Mission Architecture.
• Build a high-performing leadership team capable of managing current execution while preparing the portfolio for increased production, fielding, and customer demand.

Profit and Loss Management

• Own portfolio profit and loss performance, including revenue, gross margin, operating contribution, cash flow, backlog, investment, and forecast accuracy.
• Establish financial and operating targets for subordinate programs and capability areas and hold Program Managers and Directors accountable for achieving approved plans.
• Review program financial performance, estimates at completion, staffing, material costs, supplier commitments, indirect usage, capital requirements, and margin risks.
• Ensure corrective actions are established and executed when programs deviate from cost, schedule, revenue, margin, cash, or delivery objectives.
• Partner with Finance and Program Controls to maintain credible program baselines, accurate forecasts, disciplined cost management, and timely executive reporting.
• Evaluate portfolio investments based on customer demand, technical maturity, competitive advantage, expected return, and alignment with company strategy.
• Balance near-term financial performance with investments required to mature products, improve manufacturability, increase reliability, and scale delivery.

Portfolio Execution and Delivery

• Ensure programs deliver contractual requirements, prototypes, production units, software releases, payload integrations, demonstrations, test events, and fielded capabilities on time and within approved cost.
• Maintain portfolio-level visibility into scope, schedule, budget, technical performance, quality, staffing, supplier performance, customer dependencies, and contractual obligations.
• Conduct recurring program reviews focused on measurable outcomes, emerging risks, recovery actions, customer commitments, and decisions requiring executive intervention.
• Ensure Program Managers maintain integrated plans connecting technical development, procurement, manufacturing, integration, software delivery, test, certification, logistics, training, and fielding.
• Provide executive oversight for programs transitioning from experimentation or prototype development into repeatable production and operational deployment.
• Ensure speed and innovation do not come at the expense of configuration discipline, safety, cybersecurity, quality, reliability, supportability, or production readiness.
• Resolve cross-program dependencies involving vessel platforms, autonomy software, payloads, sensors, communications, infrastructure, personnel, and test resources.
• Escalate material cost, schedule, technical, customer, contractual, or organizational risks with clear recommendations and decision options.

Growth-to-Execution Integration

• Own the portfolio operating process for transitioning opportunities from mission development and capture into executable programs.
• Partner with mission architects and growth leaders to assess customer problems, operational concepts, requirements, competitive conditions, acquisition pathways, funding, and probability of award.
• Ensure opportunities entering the qualified pipeline align with portfolio strategy, technical capabilities, customer priorities, and realistic paths to funding and contract award.
• Establish structured gates for opportunity qualification, solution development, bid decisions, proposal approval, contract transition, and program startup.
• Ensure proposed solutions are technically feasible, appropriately scoped, competitively differentiated, executable within schedule, and supported by credible cost and staffing estimates.
• Assign accountable program, technical, and operational leaders early enough in the opportunity lifecycle to preserve continuity from solution development through execution.
• Prevent disconnects between commitments made during mission architecture, business development, capture, proposal development, negotiation, and program delivery.
• Validate that proposed work can be executed with available personnel, facilities, suppliers, technology, production capacity, test resources, and security infrastructure.
• Ensure newly awarded work enters execution with an approved baseline, accountable leadership, staffing plan, customer engagement strategy, risk register, contract summary, and documented assumptions.
• Track pipeline conversion, award timing, backlog growth, recompete exposure, customer concentration, and resource demand across the portfolio.

Customer and Mission Engagement

• Serve as a senior customer-facing leader and maintain trusted relationships across operational commands, acquisition organizations, research organizations, resource sponsors, laboratories, industry partners, and mission stakeholders.
• Maintain a strong understanding of customer missions, concepts of employment, operational constraints, acquisition strategies, funding priorities, and capability gaps.
• Ensure customer feedback from demonstrations, experimentation, exercises, test events, and deployed operations informs product roadmaps and portfolio investment decisions.
• Communicate program performance, risks, decisions, and recovery plans candidly and professionally.
• Build coalitions across government, industry, academia, suppliers, and strategic partners to strengthen delivery and expand mission impact.
• Represent the portfolio during executive reviews, customer engagements, demonstrations, industry events, strategic planning sessions, and partner discussions.
• Protect customer trust by ensuring the organization makes achievable commitments and consistently delivers against them.

Product and Technical Portfolio Alignment

• Partner with Engineering and Product leadership to maintain integrated roadmaps across vessel platforms, payload interfaces, autonomy software, sensors, communications, command and control, and mission applications.
• Ensure platform and product decisions support modularity, open architectures, common interfaces, reusability, interoperability, and integration of government- and industry-provided capabilities.
• Promote common technical baselines and reusable components where they reduce cost, schedule, integration risk, or sustainment burden.
• Ensure autonomy solutions address platform control, navigation, mission execution, multi-vehicle coordination, human-machine interaction, resilience, safety, and degraded communications environments.
• Guide decisions concerning internal development, commercial technology integration, strategic partnerships, licensing, and supplier-based solutions.
• Ensure technical maturity, integration complexity, cybersecurity, reliability, manufacturing readiness, test evidence, and sustainment requirements are reflected in program and investment decisions.
• Maintain alignment between customer-specific integrations and the long-term product architecture to prevent unnecessary fragmentation or unsupported configurations.
• Support scalable product and production strategies that move the portfolio from individual prototypes toward repeatable, affordable delivery.

Production, Integration, and Operational Readiness

• Oversee readiness to build, integrate, test, deliver, deploy, and support unmanned platforms and mission systems at increasing scale.
• Partner with Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Quality, Security, and Facilities to ensure infrastructure and capacity support portfolio demand.
• Monitor supplier health, material availability, long-lead items, obsolescence, production constraints, and critical component dependencies.
• Ensure vessel, payload, sensor, software, and communications configurations are controlled and traceable throughout integration, test, delivery, and sustainment.
• Drive design-for-manufacturing, design-for-integration, reliability, maintainability, and lifecycle support considerations into portfolio planning.
• Ensure test and evaluation strategies provide objective evidence of platform performance, autonomy behavior, payload integration, safety, endurance, environmental suitability, and mission effectiveness.
• Promote disciplined learning from demonstrations, failures, test anomalies, field operations, and customer feedback.
• Ensure operational deployments and demonstrations are supported by appropriate logistics, training, safety, security, communications, and contingency procedures.

Organizational Leadership

• Recruit, develop, organize, and retain the program and technical leadership required to execute the portfolio strategy.
• Create an environment of accountability, collaboration, technical rigor, transparency, and bias for action.
• Coach Program Managers and Directors in financial management, customer engagement, risk management, decision-making, and cross-functional leadership.
• Establish succession plans and leadership development pathways for critical portfolio positions.
• Evaluate organizational capacity and recommend changes to structure, staffing, facilities, systems, or processes as the portfolio grows.
• Resolve competing priorities and allocate scarce personnel, capital, facilities, and technical resources based on mission impact and business value.
• Ensure teams communicate risks early, use data to support decisions, and maintain clear ownership of actions and outcomes.
• Governance, Risk, and Compliance
• Ensure portfolio programs comply with contractual requirements, company policies, applicable security requirements, export controls, cybersecurity obligations, safety standards, quality requirements, and customer-directed procedures.
• Partner with Contracts, Legal, Finance, Security, and Compliance to evaluate acquisition strategies, Other Transaction Agreements, subcontracts, intellectual property, data rights, organizational conflicts of interest, and performance obligations.
• Maintain portfolio-level oversight of business, technical, operational, security, supply chain, and reputational risks.
• Ensure classified and controlled activities are planned and executed in coordination with appropriate security leadership and approved facilities.
• Support internal reviews, customer audits, corrective action plans, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, business, program management, national security, or a related field.
• 15 or more years of progressively responsible experience in defense, aerospace, maritime systems, autonomous systems, robotics, advanced sensors, or a related mission area.
• Seven or more years of experience leading leaders, major programs, product lines, business units, or multidisciplinary portfolios.
• Demonstrated responsibility for profit and loss, financial planning, forecasting, margin performance, and business execution.
• Demonstrated success delivering complex hardware and software systems under demanding cost, schedule, technical, and customer constraints.
• Experience leading multiple Program Managers, Directors, or senior functional leaders.
• Experience transitioning opportunities from customer engagement, capture, and proposal development into program startup and execution.
• Working knowledge of Department of Defense requirements, acquisition, contracting, budgeting, and program execution environments.
• Experience with rapid prototyping, experimentation, Other Transaction Agreements, nontraditional acquisition pathways, or accelerated capability development.
• Ability to understand and communicate technical matters involving autonomous systems, integrated hardware and software, payloads, sensors, communications, testing, and mission operations.
• Strong financial judgment and demonstrated ability to identify and correct program performance issues.
• Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with senior government, military, industry, and technical stakeholders.
• Exceptional executive communication, negotiation, organizational leadership, and decision-making skills.
• Ability to travel regularly to customer locations, company facilities, integration sites, test events, demonstrations, and operational exercises.
• U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.

Preferred Qualifications (Not Required) 

• Master’s degree in engineering, business administration, program management, national security, or a related field.
• Experience with unmanned surface vessels, autonomous maritime systems, shipbuilding, small craft, naval systems, radar, or maritime mission operations.
• Experience integrating autonomy software, sensors, payloads, communications, command and control systems, or mission applications onto unmanned platforms.
• Experience leading a portfolio through prototype development, customer experimentation, low-rate production, scaled manufacturing, and operational fielding.
• Experience supporting the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Defense Innovation Unit, combatant commands, or allied maritime requirements.
• Knowledge of open systems architectures, modular payload interfaces, collaborative autonomy, manned-unmanned teaming, and multi-domain command and control.
• Experience with production planning, supply chain management, manufacturing readiness, configuration management, test and evaluation, and lifecycle sustainment.
• Familiarity with classified program execution, export-controlled technologies, cybersecurity requirements, and defense industrial base security practices.
• Program Management Professional certification, Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act certification, or comparable program leadership credentials.
• Active Secret or Top-Secret security clearance.

Physical Requirements 

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Ability to move throughout office, laboratory, production, integration, waterfront, and field-test environments.
• Must be able to lift up to 25 pounds at times.
• May be exposed to outdoor, marine, industrial, integration, manufacturing, test-range, or vessel operating environments.
• May require work outside standard business hours to support customer events, demonstrations, testing, travel, or program milestones.
• This position may require travel up to 30 percent, based on business and program needs.

Clearance Requirements 

Some positions will require access to U.S. National Security information. Positions that require this access will be required to receive and maintain a U.S. government personnel security clearance (PCL). In order to qualify for this position, the candidate must be a US Citizen and either currently possess this National Security eligibility or be able to complete the investigation application process with a favorable determination and maintain that eligibility throughout their employment. 

Pay Scales & Benefits 

The listed pay scale reflects the broad, minimum to maximum, pay scale for this position for the location for which it has been posted and is not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Other compensation considerations may include, but are not limited to, job responsibilities, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, or other applicable factors. 

Benefits include… 

Paid Time Off 

Paid Company Holidays 

Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance 

Optional HSA and FSA 

Base and Voluntary Life Insurance 

Short Term & Long-Term Disability Insurance 

401k Matching 

Employee Assistance Program