Deputy Program Manager (Hybrid- Annapolis, MD)

Fairwinds Technologies, L

18h•$134,000 - $172,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The C-UAS Deputy Program Manager serves as the program’s second‑in‑command, responsible for ensuring the day‑to‑day execution, coordination, and performance of the DHS C‑UAS program. The DPM drives operational excellence across engineering, test and evaluation (DT/OT), deployment, logistics/property management, cybersecurity, training, and helpdesk/operations. This role ensures that all functional teams are synchronized, program risks are actively managed, deliverables meet DHS quality and compliance standards, and the government receives timely, accurate program reporting. The DPM is a hands‑on leader who thrives in fast‑paced operational environments, understands the full lifecycle of C‑UAS systems, and can translate mission requirements into actionable tasks for geographically distributed teams.

Requirements

Must be a U.S citizen with an ACTIVE security clearance of at least the SECRET level.
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Program Management, Business, Systems Engineering, or related technical field required.
12+ years supporting federal, defense, homeland security, or C4ISR programs.
10+ years in a program leadership, Deputy PM, Task Lead, or Operations Management role.
Strong understanding of complex, multi‑sensor systems (RF detection, radar, EO/IR), C2 software, networking/backhaul, trailerized systems, and field deployment operations.
Demonstrated experience managing cross‑functional technical teams.
Experience with program management tools (such as: MS Project, Jira, Confluence, SharePoint, Power BI, Excel).
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including briefing senior government stakeholders.
Strong financial, scheduling, and risk management experience.
Ability to travel and support field operations, test events, and site deployments as needed.

Nice To Haves

PMP, PgMP, DAU, ITIL, Agile/Scrum, or similar program management certifications strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead daily program operations, ensuring task assignments, deliverables, dependencies, and milestones are executed on schedule.
Maintain and evolve the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) in coordination with engineering, logistics, test, training, and deployment leads.
Monitor workstream progress and ensure alignment to scope, budget, staffing, and contractual requirements.
Proactively identify schedule risks and develop mitigation and recovery plans.
Serve as a primary interface with DHS program officials, operational components, test organizations, and partnered agencies.
Support all technical and programmatic reviews, acceptance events, and leadership briefings.
Ensure government stakeholders receive timely reporting, metrics, status packages, risk summaries, and readiness updates.
Coordinate cross agency collaboration for live fly events, training cycles, operational demos, and field deployments.
Provide day-to-day leadership to engineering (software, hardware, sensor/RF, networking), test, deployment, cybersecurity, training, and logistics teams.
Ensure workstreams are synchronized, blockers are removed quickly, and priorities are clear and mission aligned.
Support hiring, onboarding, staffing forecasts, and personnel performance management.
Reinforce a culture of accountability, documentation discipline, safety, and mission driven execution.
Maintain the program risk register; ensuring proper identification, scoring, mitigation planning, and government visibility.
Support the Change Control Board (CCB) process and ensure new requirements, engineering changes, or field driven updates are evaluated for schedule, cost, and risk impacts.
Ensure rapid escalation paths for critical risks or emergent operational issues.
Support the Program Manager in budget execution, burn rate tracking, financial forecasting, and alignment to contract CLINs/SLINs.
Ensure team delivers on time and meet quality requirements.
Review Statements of Work (SOWs), contract modifications, procurement requests, and resource allocations.
Maintain compliance with DHS, federal, and internal corporate policies governing program operations.
Oversee planning, coordination, and execution of field deployments, site activations, and operational events.
Ensure trailer kits, sensors, C2 systems, networking/backhaul, power, spares, documentation, and personnel are fully prepared for deployment.
Validate that pre-deployment and post-deployment checklists, safety briefs, logistics plans, and readiness criteria are met.
Monitor field feedback and drive continuous improvement actions.
Coordinate T&E planning with test leads, ensuring asset availability, range coordination, logistics, data capture, and reporting are aligned.
Ensure test objectives, safety plans, data collection plans, and quicklook/analysis workflows are fully staffed and resourced.
Support the development of evaluation reports, deficiency reports, and corrective action plans.
Oversee production of high quality program documents including weekly reports, monthly status reports, dashboards, risk summaries, readiness assessments, SOPs, and lessons learned packets.
Ensure all documents meet government formatting, accuracy, and audit standards.
Support quality audits, compliance reviews, and internal/external assessments.