Job Description
Location: San Francisco, CA. Onsite preferred.
Team: USAvionix
Type: Full-time
We’re building autonomous ISR aircraft capable of sensing, deciding, and acting in milliseconds, without relying on the cloud.
This role is responsible for execution of the autonomy backlog. The Product Owner operates inside the engineering loop and is accountable for forward motion, clarity, and delivery across the Delta and Phalanx programs.
What you’ll do
- Own execution of the autonomy backlog across hardware, onboard intelligence, and AI orchestration systems.
- Translate mission goals and high-level direction into epics, stories, and acceptance criteria.
- Work closely with engineering on a daily basis to clarify scope and unblock execution.
- Proactively externalize work in progress using lightweight artifacts such as wireframes, flows, notes, and screenshots.
- Maintain continuous visibility into progress without waiting for prompts from the founder or other stakeholders.
- Drive day-to-day prioritization across the Delta (aircraft) and Phalanx (AI) programs.
- Enforce execution-level tradeoffs between performance, cost, and schedule.
- Validate delivered work against acceptance criteria before it is considered complete.
- Coordinate with design to ensure operator workflows and system behavior remain aligned.
- Communicate execution status, risks, and blockers clearly and consistently.
What we’re looking for
- Engineering background or prior hands-on technical role strongly preferred and weighted heavily.
- Comfortable operating inside engineering discussions and technical tradeoffs.
- Strong systems-level understanding of software and hardware interaction.
- Experience working directly with engineers in execution-heavy environments.
- Demonstrated ability to move work forward independently without waiting for direction.
- Comfortable sharing incomplete work early to drive fast feedback.
- Strong organization and documentation discipline.
Nice to have
- Background in robotics, aerospace, defense, or embedded systems.
- Familiarity with Linear, Notion, Slack, and GitHub.
- Experience in early-stage, R&D-heavy, or hardware-constrained environments.
- Former engineer, systems lead, or technical operator.
Why USAVX
USAvionix builds autonomous systems that must operate under real-world constraints. In this role, you’ll work close to the engineers and close to the product, ensuring execution keeps pace with ambition and progress is always visible.
If you prefer waiting for direction, this is not the role.
If you proactively push work forward, it is.