Program Manager, Naval Systems
Location: Washington, DC / Arlington, VA
Employment type: Full-time
Reports to: Chief Growth Officer (CGO)
Target start: Q4 2026
Who We Are
First Order Effects (FOE) is building America’s Infrastructure Prime for the robotic era. Autonomous ships, drones, and robots are rewriting how the world moves, fights, and builds. However, none of them work without infrastructure to power them, connect them, and launch and recover them. That’s what we build.
We’ve Built Cutting Edge Systems at Legendary Companies
Our team comes from SpaceX, Anduril, Saronic, Lockheed Skunk Works, Forterra, and Fuse Energy. Before founding FOE, we built satellite ground stations that closed a national comms gap in days, deployed multi-megawatt power systems at commercial speed, and shipped autonomous surface vessels into Navy fleet production. We’ve built infrastructure at lightspeed before - now we’re applying that playbook to an entire company.
The Role
FOE wins work by moving faster than the government expects and speaking the government’s language better than our competitors do. That requires someone who has lived on the other side of the table: a former NAVSEA, warfare center, or similar acquisition professional who can take a customer’s capability need and drive it through top-level requirements, derived system requirements, and a test and evaluation plan, then walk it back up through verification without dropping a thread.
Today that work is distributed across growth, programs, and engineering. Nobody owns it. This hire owns it. You sit at the junction of all three, shaping captures with technically credible solutions, translating won work into executable requirements baselines, and making sure what engineering builds is what the customer can accept, test, and field.
One boundary, stated plainly, is that programs at FOE sit under the CGO while product sits under the Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Engineering owns the product. This role owns the customer requirement and the program’s obligation to meet it. You align product to program; you do not design the product. The tension between those two lanes is deliberate and productive, and this role works inside it, not around it.
If you are the right hire, you have spent years inside a Navy systems command, warfare center, or equivalent acquisition organization. You know how a requirement becomes a contract line item. You have personally authored or approved requirements documents, SRVMs, and T&E plans that survived government gate reviews. Furthermore, you still have the relationships with program office, warfare center, and technical authority contacts who return your calls.
What You’ll Do
Own the customer requirements thread on every FOE program, from the initial capability need through top-level requirements, derived system requirements, and test and evaluation planning, and back up through verification and validation closure. How engineering satisfies those requirements is the CTO organization’s call; however, ensuring that they are satisfied is yours.
Architect the technical solution during capture. You are the technical voice in the room when growth shapes an opportunity, and the author of the solution framework that anchors our proposals. This framework is built on the product baseline engineering owns, not invented around it.
Produce requirements baseline artifacts: requirements documents, requirements verification matrices, T&E master plans, and gate review packages, produced to a standard the government recognizes as its own.
Own MIL-STD and specification compliance strategy by knowing which standards apply, which to negotiate, and how to write compliance language that protects both the program and the company.
Manage government stakeholders, including program offices, warfare centers, technical authorities, and operational test agencies. You keep them informed, aligned, and satisfied from capture through delivery.
Run the growth/programs/engineering interface to provide internal translation between what the customer needs, what we promised, and what we are building. When those three drift apart, you are the person who catches it early, and you resolve it with the CTO’s team, not around them.
Run program gate reviews, which are the requirements and verification gates on FOE programs, and hold the line when a baseline isn’t ready. Engineering design reviews belong to the CTO organization; you sit in them as the customer’s proxy, not the chair.
What You’ll Be Measured On
Requirements packages: complete, gate-reviewed requirements baselines (including requirements document, verification matrix, and T&E plan) delivered for every active FOE program.
Verification closure: verification events executed to plan, with closure rates tracked and no requirement orphaned between engineering and test.
Capture contribution: technical solution frameworks delivered for every priority pursuit; proposal technical volumes submitted without major gate findings.
Customer confidence: documented technical exchanges with government program offices and warfare centers, and customer acceptance of FOE-authored technical baselines without major rework.
What We’re Looking For
Ten or more years spanning government acquisition and defense industry, including significant time inside NAVSEA, a Navy warfare center (NSWC/NUWC divisions), or an equivalent systems command or acquisition organization.
Demonstrated end-to-end requirements fluency. You have personally taken a capability need through top-level requirements, derived requirements, and T&E planning, and closed the loop through verification. You can whiteboard the V-model from memory and you know where programs actually break down.
Working knowledge of the MIL-STD ecosystem and how to apply it without gold-plating, including MIL-STD-961, 810, 1472, and the DoD specification and standards structure, plus the judgment to tailor rather than blindly flow down.
Existing relationships with government acquisition and warfare center personnel, such as program offices, technical warrant holders, and T&E authorities, at the working level.
Fluency in DoD acquisition structures. You understand the adaptive acquisition framework, middle-tier and rapid acquisition pathways, and how requirements move through each.
Proven ability to operate across growth, programs, and engineering. You have supported captures and proposals, managed program execution, and argued with engineers about derived requirements, and you can switch between those registers in a single meeting.
Strong technical writing. Your requirements documents and technical volumes read like the government wrote them, because you used to.
An AI-native workflow. For tasks such as requirements decomposition, verification matrix generation, compliance mapping, and technical volume drafting, you use AI to compress the timeline. You should be able to articulate, in interview, how you use AI today to outpace peers while maintaining policy compliant use of AI tools.
Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. DoD Secret clearance at minimum; active Secret or TS/SCI at hire a strong plus.
Bonus Points
Engineering Duty Officer, Acquisition Corps, or DAWIA-certified background (Program Management or Engineering, Level II/III).
Direct experience with unmanned maritime systems, expeditionary systems, or cUxS programs.
Prior experience at a defense tech company or major prime translating government requirements practice into a commercial-speed environment.
Compensation
$150,000–$190,000 base + founding-team equity sized for the role + benefits. If you’re an outlier, we’ll pay like it.
ITAR requirement
To conform to U.S. Government export regulations (ITAR/EAR), applicants must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3). Candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance; active clearance not required.
FOE is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with FOE is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.
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