Program Director, International Expat

What we do: 

The Program Director (Program Integration & Liaison) leads the end‑to‑end aircraft development program, serving as the strategic connective tissue that aligns schedules, risks, technical deliverables, and organizational priorities across engineering, certification and supply chain. This role directs cross‑functional teams—managing approximately seven leaders across systems engineering, configuration, certification, production, quality, safety, and test & evaluation—while overseeing program budgets, schedules, and enterprise‑level risk to drive successful program outcomes.

The Program Director ensures the internalization of project knowledge, processes, and technical achievements into Supernal’s core capabilities, enabling long‑term competitiveness and program continuity. The role drives execution rhythm within a complex matrixed environment, ensuring milestone governance, regulatory compliance, technical excellence, and alignment with Supernal’s strategic roadmap. This includes developing and executing the program’s strategic vision and lifecycle plan, delivering key milestones on schedule and within budget, and ultimately leading the seamless transition of the program back to Supernal for subsequent phases.

Location: This role will be dispatched to an international location for an expected duration of 5 years. After the expat assignment, the role will be located at Supernal Headquarters in Irvine, CA. 

What you can do:

• Direct the end-to-end execution of the aircraft development program, ensuring all milestones align with Supernal’s long-term strategic roadmap and product standards.
• Serve as the primary strategic representative of Supernal to advocate for Supernal’s interests and ensure technical decisions support the company’s global objectives.
• Lead, mentor and manage a multi-discipline, highly technical team in a matrixed environment to ensure project milestones are achieved on time. Foster a collaborative and inclusive environment to drive innovation and program success.
• Orchestrate the systematic internalization of project milestones, technical processes, and intellectual property (IP) generated to build Supernal’s internal core capabilities.
• Lead high-level synchronization and governance, navigating complex organizational cultures to maintain unified program velocity.
• Integrate product competitiveness, unit manufacturing cost (UMC), and market-driven requirements into the technical development process to complement the Systems Engineering scope.
• Architect and execute the phase-gate governance (PDR, CDR, TRR, TC), ensuring that technical maturity, certification readiness, and supply chain maturity meet rigorous program gates.
• Lead the strategic transition of the program back to Supernal-led execution, ensuring zero loss in technical continuity or momentum for the next lifecycle.
• Own the executive-level program risk register, focusing on critical-path risks that impact FAA/EASA certification, market entry, and multi-year financial planning.
• Manage and communicate the multi-million-dollar program budget, ensuring disciplined spend alignment with schedule deliverables and product performance targets.
• Proactively identify and secure global resource requirements, highlighting gaps and driving mitigation across engineering, manufacturing, and certification teams.
• Develop high-impact dashboards and intelligence reports for C-suite leadership to enable execution-driven decision-making and provide full program visibility.
• Drive cross-functional execution rhythm across engineering, test, certification, and supply chain to ensure the right resources are focused on the highest-priority program dependencies.
• Ability to travel up to 25% domestically and internationally.

What you can contribute:

• Bachelor’s degree in aerospace, electrical, mechanical engineering, or related field required; advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum of fifteen (15) years in a technical program/project management role (an equivalent combination of experience and education may be considered for this role).
• Experience working across multi-cultural teams across multiple time zones to deliver against set targets.
• Experience with product development, Product Life-cycle Management, Systems Engineering, Configuration Management and FAA certification.
• Experience with MS Project, Doors, Jira and/or other project management tools.
• Ability to align technical objectives with broader business and strategic goals.
• Proven ability to navigate complex stakeholder landscapes with strong negotiation and conflict‑resolution skills, effectively influencing cross‑functional and executive partners to drive program alignment and outcomes.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills to prepare and deliver comprehensive status reports and high-impact executive briefings to senior and C-suite leadership.
• Experience supporting executive reporting and dashboard preparation, synthesizing complex technical information into clear, insight‑driven visualizations and summaries that enable informed decision‑making by senior and C‑suite leadership.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills in complex technical environments, with the ability to derive insights from large and varied data sources using data visualization tools and database applications.
• Understanding of product competitiveness, cost, and commercial considerations.
• Familiarity with phase-gate governance processes and certification readiness frameworks.
• Demonstrated ability to lead rigorous program coordination and milestone governance, ensuring cross‑functional alignment while managing budget tracking and enterprise‑level risk.