Program Chief Engineer

About the Role

As a Program Chief Engineer you will be responsible for defining and driving the system's architecture, technical roadmap, and overall engineering excellence. You will lead a multi-disciplinary team of high-performing engineers, ensuring that the system meets stringent performance, reliability, and mission requirements in challenging maritime environments. This role combines strategic technical leadership with direct hands-on involvement in critical design and integration challenges.

This is a highly visible and impactful role where your deep technical expertise, strategic thinking, and leadership will directly contribute to delivering transformative capabilities for national security.

Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership & Vision: Define and articulate the technical vision and strategic roadmap for the system, ensuring alignment with Anduril's broader Dive-XL Core Platform and customer needs.

Work directly with the product team to ensure tactical development is executed on plan.

• Architectural Design Authority: Serve as the ultimate technical authority for the system architecture, design decisions, and critical trade-offs across all engineering disciplines.
• System Integration & Performance: Oversee the end-to-end development lifecycle, from requirements definition and conceptual design through detailed design, integration, test, and deployment.
• Test & Evaluation: Define and oversee the test and evaluation strategy, including acceptance criteria, test readiness reviews, and support to customer acceptance testing.
• Technical Problem Solving: Lead the resolution of complex technical challenges, acting as a hands-on expert and guiding teams through difficult design, integration, or operational issues.
• Technical Trade-offs: Drive build vs. buy decisions, manage technical debt, and balance speed of delivery against long-term system sustainability.
• Team Mentorship & Development: Provide technical mentorship, guidance, and critical review for engineering teams, fostering a culture of innovation, excellence, and rigorous problem-solving.
• Risk and Opportunity Management: Identify, assess, and mitigate technical risks throughout the program lifecycle, developing contingency plans and advising program leadership.
• Customer & Stakeholder Engagement: Act as a primary technical point of contact for internal stakeholders, customers, and partners.

Clearly communicate complex technical information, program status, and strategic direction.

• Cross-Site Coordination: Collaborate closely with the US Chief Engineer counterpart to ensure technical alignment across program variants, share lessons learned, and maintain architectural consistency.
• Requirements Management: Ensure robust requirements decomposition, traceability, and verification plans are in place for all subsystems.
• Innovation & Research: Stay abreast of cutting-edge technologies, research, and industry trends relevant to autonomous underwater systems, incorporating best practices and innovative solutions.

Requirements

• Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline.
• 15+ years of experience in the design, development, integration, and deployment of complex autonomous systems.
• 5+ years of demonstrated experience as a Chief Engineer, Technical Director, Lead Architect, Engineering Fellow, or equivalent senior technical leadership role on a major hardware/software program.
• Proficiency in systems engineering principles, including requirements management, interface control, verification, and validation.
• Proven ability to lead and mentor highly technical, multi-disciplinary engineering teams.
• Exceptional communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain an Australian National Security Clearance (NV2 or higher).

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep expertise across multiple AUV sub-domains, such as hydrodynamics, propulsion, power systems, underwater acoustics, navigation, autonomy, materials science, mechanical design, and software architectures.
• Active Australian National Security Clearance (NV2 or higher).
• Experience with the full lifecycle of Australian Defence Force (ADF) acquisition programs.
• Demonstrated understanding of Australian defence contracting frameworks.
• Experience with system safety engineering practices and familiarity with submarine/AUV safety certification processes.
• Familiarity with cybersecurity best practices for autonomous systems.
• Expertise in AI/ML applications for AUV autonomy, perception, and decision-making.
• Experience with advanced manufacturing techniques for marine systems.

Benefits

Anduril offers a comprehensive, competitive benefits package, including top-tier benefits for full-time employees.

Salary

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full-time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package.