Contract Software Engineering Manager Jobs in Reno, NV

We are currently seeking an experienced Engineering Project Manager to help drive execution across multiple engineering and cross-functional initiatives supporting the design, development, manufacturing, and deployment of our Ultra Long Endurance aircrafts.

This individual will serve as a central coordination point across Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Flight Operations, and other functional teams to ensure critical projects remain organized, priorities stay aligned, and key deliverables continue moving forward. Success in this role requires exceptional organizational skills, strong technical project management experience, and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment where priorities evolve rapidly.

The Engineering Project Manager will work closely with engineering leadership to translate strategic priorities into actionable project plans, coordinate cross-functional execution, proactively identify risks, and ensure projects are completed on schedule while maintaining visibility for leadership.

Location: Reno, NV Office

Responsibilities:

• Lead the planning, execution, tracking, and successful delivery of multiple concurrent engineering projects and strategic initiatives.
• Develop and maintain integrated project plans, schedules, milestones, action item registers, and risk logs.
• Coordinate activities across Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Flight Operations, and other functional organizations.
• Facilitate project meetings, capture decisions, document action items, and ensure timely follow-up with project stakeholders.
• Monitor project status, identify schedule risks, resource constraints, and cross-functional dependencies, escalating issues when appropriate.
• Own the end-to-end software delivery lifecycle, including requirements, development, quality assurance (QA), documentation, release, customer delivery, and training readiness.
• Manage the software delivery pipeline to ensure work is properly planned, tracked, tested, documented, released, and communicated before being considered complete.
• Coordinate across software, engineering, manufacturing, quality, product, support, and customer-facing teams to ensure releases are delivered reliably and are ready for customer use.
• Support engineering change implementation, product development activities, manufacturing readiness efforts, and continuous process improvement initiatives.
• Coordinate with internal and external stakeholders, including suppliers and technical partners, as required to support project objectives.
• Ensure project documentation is complete, accurate, and maintained throughout the project lifecycle.
• Partner with engineering leadership to prioritize work, manage competing initiatives, and maintain visibility into organizational priorities.
• Manage competing priorities across engineering teams and provide disciplined prioritization, ensuring new requests do not jeopardize existing commitments, release quality, engineering milestones, or customer obligations.
• Drive accountability across project teams while fostering strong collaborative relationships throughout the organization.
• Track project performance metrics and prepare regular status updates for engineering leadership and executive management.
• Recommend and implement scalable project management processes, tools, and best practices that improve organizational execution without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of project management experience leading complex, cross-functional engineering projects involving multiple technical disciplines, including hardware, software, systems engineering, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and product development teams within aerospace, defense, aviation, UAS, robotics, or other highly technical product development environments.
• Demonstrated success managing multiple concurrent engineering projects with competing priorities, aggressive schedules, and cross-functional dependencies.
• Strong understanding of project planning, scheduling, risk management, dependency management, resource coordination, and project execution methodologies.
• Experience supporting engineering organizations throughout the complete product development lifecycle, from concept and design through development, integration, testing, manufacturing, and product release.
• Proven ability to coordinate technical teams, facilitate cross-functional decision making, and drive accountability across organizations without direct management authority.
• Excellent organizational, written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively with both technical and executive stakeholders.
• Strong analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills with the ability to proactively identify risks and develop practical solutions.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and modern project management platforms such as Microsoft Project, Jira, Asana, Smartsheet, or equivalent.
• U.S. Citizenship required.

Plus:

• Strongly Preferred: Experience managing engineering projects within the aerospace, defense, aviation, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), drone, or other closely related industries developing complex electromechanical products.
• Experience supporting organizations that develop complex hardware and software systems, including multidisciplinary engineering teams responsible for mechanical, electrical, embedded software, firmware, and systems integration.
• Experience supporting New Product Introduction (NPI), engineering change management, configuration management, or product lifecycle management (PLM) processes.
• Experience working in a high-growth startup or rapidly scaling technology company where priorities evolve quickly and organizational processes are still maturing.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification or equivalent project management certification.
• Experience implementing or improving project management processes, reporting frameworks, and organizational execution practices across engineering organizations.

What Success Looks Like:

• Engineering projects remain organized, visible, and on schedule.
• Cross-functional communication improves across technical organizations.
• Project risks and blockers are identified early and addressed proactively.
• Leadership has clear visibility into project health, priorities, and upcoming milestones.
• Action items are consistently tracked to completion.
• Project management processes scale effectively as the organization continues to grow.

Who We Are:

KHA develops the world's longest endurance fully electric Unmanned Aerial System ("UAS") in our size and weight category. We solve large-scale worldwide problems by providing persistent overhead services to help our soldiers remain safe in theater, provision rapid emergency communications for disaster relief efforts, enable search-and-rescue services to assist emergency response efforts, help anti-poaching to protect the world's most endangered species and provide geospatial data to assist in slowing climate change.

https://krausaerospace.com/

Compensation:

Complete health care package

Next Step:

Please submit your resume, contact information and a short paragraph outlining why you believe this position is a good fit. We will reach out to you directly over the phone for next steps.