Senior Manager, Sustainment

What you'll do

• Establish and scale the aircraft division sustainment and product health organization, including team structure, roles, operating rhythms, metrics, reporting, and cross-functional governance.
• Lead sustainment execution across fleet operations, product health, reliability analytics, configuration control, obsolescence management, MRB support, repair governance, and fielded-system issue resolution.
• Develop and mature the product health operating model, including fleet health reviews, reliability readouts, top degrader reviews, corrective action reviews, configuration reviews, and sustainment risk reporting.
• Drive cross-functional resolution of customer-impacting and fleet-impacting issues across Fleet Support, Engineering, Product Support, Quality, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Program Management, Operations, and Customer Success.
• Establish scalable processes for failure tracking, root cause coordination, corrective action closure, field retrofit planning, service actions, maintenance release coordination, and issue escalation.
• Lead analysis of fleet operational data, maintenance activity, failure trends, reliability performance, readiness impacts, repair needs, and maintenance burden.
• Ensure reliability and maintainability insights are converted into product improvements, inspection changes, diagnostics, service guidance, maintenance process improvements, and engineering corrective actions.
• Maintain governance over fielded-configuration discipline for aircraft hardware, software, payloads, ground equipment, support equipment, customer-specific configurations, and fielded modifications.
• Oversee obsolescence and lifecycle management activities, including end-of-life risk tracking, supplier risk visibility, last-time-buy coordination, alternate part planning, redesign coordination, and fleet impact assessment.
• Establish governance for MRB activity, repair dispositions, returned material evaluation, nonconforming hardware, production escapes, depot repairs, and field repair processes.
• Develop executive-level product health dashboards covering fleet availability, reliability trends, readiness degraders, recurring failures, configuration status, obsolescence risk, repair status, and corrective action progress.
• Hire, mentor, and develop sustainment leaders, technical contributors, analysts, and engineering partners as the organization scales.
• Build a team culture centered on operational accountability, engineering rigor, data-driven decision making, disciplined execution, customer urgency, and continuous improvement.

Required qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in aviation sustainment, fleet operations, sustaining engineering, reliability engineering, maintenance operations, product support, technical operations, or related aerospace/defense environments.
• 5+ years of experience leading technical, operational, engineering, sustainment, reliability, product support, maintenance, or fielded-system teams.
• Proven ability to establish, scale, or mature a technical, operational, engineering, sustainment, product support, or fleet support organization.
• Experience supporting fielded aircraft, UAS, defense systems, complex electromechanical systems, robotics, aerospace platforms, or other mission-critical hardware/software products.
• Strong understanding of fleet sustainment, operational readiness, reliability improvement, maintainability, corrective action systems, configuration control, repair governance, and lifecycle support.
• Experience leading product health, fleet health, reliability, readiness, or sustainment governance mechanisms for deployed or customer-operated systems.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional issue resolution across Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Product Support, Fleet Operations, Maintenance, Program Management, Operations, and Customer Success.
• Experience using operational data, maintenance data, reliability trends, field reports, returned material findings, and failure analysis to drive product or sustainment decisions.
• Strong program execution discipline, including action tracking, issue escalation, risk management, prioritization, operating rhythm design, and leadership reporting.
• Ability to balance engineering rigor with operational urgency, customer impact, fleet readiness, and business priorities.
• Strong people leadership skills, including hiring, coaching, performance management, organizational design, and development of technical contributors and emerging leaders.
• Strong executive communication skills, with the ability to brief technical issues, fleet risks, product health trends, organizational needs, and sustainment priorities to senior leaders.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience supporting military, government, international, or deployed aviation customers.
• Experience with Group 3 or Group 5 UAS, unmanned aircraft, defense aviation, aerospace sustainment, or operational fleet support.
• Familiarity with FRACAS, Reliability and Maintainability programs, RCCA, failure review boards, product health reviews, top degrader management, or fleet readiness reporting.
• Experience with configuration management, engineering change processes, service bulletins, field retrofits, software/hardware release readiness, or as-maintained fleet configuration control.
• Experience with MRB processes, nonconforming material disposition, depot repair, field repair development, returned material analysis, or production escape resolution.
• Experience with obsolescence management, lifecycle management, supplier discontinuance planning, alternate part qualification, redesign coordination, or last-time-buy planning.
• Familiarity with Performance-Based Logistics, Contractor Logistics Support, Integrated Product Support, or lifecycle sustainment planning.
• Experience building dashboards, metrics, or analytics environments for fleet health, operational availability, reliability performance, maintenance burden, repair status, or corrective action execution.
• Familiarity with ITAR, export-controlled technical data, controlled customer environments, or defense operational support.
• Active Secret or Top Secret clearance preferred.