Mission Manager

Vast is looking for a Mission Manager, reporting to the SVP of Product & Business Development, to support the technical and program management execution of Vast’s customers and programs involving human spaceflight.

This will be a full-time, exempt position located in our Long Beach headquarters. 

Responsibilities:

• Manage all aspects of a given Vast's programs ranging from launching human crew and pressurized payloads to low earth orbital destinations
• Be personally responsible for end-to-end mission success.
• Act as the face of Vast to our customers to ensure their requirements are met or exceeded and the mission ends in success. 
• Creates and maintains overall project schedules and budgets with a focus on meeting or exceeding customer milestones and deliverables.
• Support multiple programs and competing priorities concurrently.
• Lead technical projects from contract signature through mission completion.
• Work with the customer to mitigate and resolve technical and programmatic issues that arise with a success oriented approach and passion for resolution.
• Interface with internal engineering, management, and production teams to ensure on-time execution of the mission while meeting all customer requirements.
• Collaborate with engineering and production groups to understand vehicle readiness and how changes impact requirements, vehicle risk, and launch dates.
• Work closely with the Business Development team to support proposal generation and coordinate mission activities with overall business activities in an as-needed sales engineer role.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or science with 5+ years of industry experience.
• Experience with technical project management.
• Experience working hands-on with hardware or software technical projects.
• Experience acting as the primary interface of a company and program to an external customer. 

Preferred Skills and Qualifications: 

• Master’s degree in an engineering or science discipline.
• Experience with U.S. Government customers, NASA preferred. 
• Experience with human spaceflight strongly preferred. 
• Professional experience working with technically competent customers within aerospace projects.
• Working experience with leading U.S.-based launch suppliers
• Excellent technical writing skills especially involving multi-party interface specifications.
• Strong negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills.
• Highly detail-oriented and experienced working with cross-functional teams and external customers.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced and demanding start-up atmosphere.
• Ability to thrive as a ‘one-person team’.
• Excellent communication skills to deal with the customer at the technical and management level as well as our internal engineering and production team.
• Available to work extended hours and/or weekends as needed to support critical milestones or operations shifts as the program requires.
• Willing to travel to launch sites, test sites, and customer locations throughout the United States and abroad as needed.
• Ability to earn trust, maintain positive and professional relationships, and contribute to a culture of inclusion.