Engineering Project Manager - Software

Job description

Airbus is committed to providing reasonable accommodations as an Equal Opportunity Employer to applicants with disabilities. If you require assistance or an accommodation to complete your application, please contact us at USCareers@airbus.com Notice: Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal Notice: Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination (English) Aviso: Transparencia en el Pago No Discriminación (Spanish) Job Description: Are you an Engineering Project Manager who excels at turning complex software development into smooth, predictable delivery across distributed teams? Airbus is looking for a technical Engineering Project Manager-Software to lead planning, resource allocation, and execution for our software organization, anchored out of Bingen, WA with teams spanning multiple continents. Whether you're a former software engineer who transitioned into program management or an experienced technical PM who speaks fluent developer, this role lets you own the project rhythm—bridging day-to-day engineering workflows in GitLab with corporate-level roadmaps in Smartsheet and JIRA. Meet the Team: The Airbus Helicopters Flexrotor Program offers one of the most sophisticated small tactical unmanned aerial systems (STUAS) with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL). It can be used day or night by US and allied forces for a diverse range of intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) on land and at sea. Your Working Environment: Nestled in the heart of the spectacular Columbia River Gorge in Bingen, WA, our workplace offers innovation and the ability to contribute to game-changing solutions while enjoying the flexibility to spread your wings. Whether it's solving complex challenges, or celebrating victories, you’ll be part of a cohesive crew that thrives on innovation and the beauty that the Northwest has to offer! How We Care for You: Financial Rewards: Competitive base salary, incentive compensation which may include profit sharing schemes, retirement savings plan and the ability to participate in an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (“ESOP”) Work/Life Balance: Paid time off including personal time, holidays and a generous paid parental leave program. Health & Welfare: Comprehensive insurance coverage including medical (traditional and high-deductible health plans), prescription, dental, vision, life, disability, Employee Assistance Plan (“EAP”) and other supplemental benefit coverages. Your Challenges: Software Project Planning & Delivery Management — 40% Serve as the primary Project Manager for the Software Engineering team, owning planning, execution, tracking, and delivery across all active software projects. Develop, maintain, and continuously update integrated software project plans in Smartsheet, ensuring scope, milestones, dependencies, timelines, and overall status remain visible to engineering leadership and stakeholders. Track day-to-day engineering activities, issues, and deliverables in GitLab, and translate relevant project-level status into JIRA for corporate visibility and cross-functional alignment. Partner with Software Engineering leads to establish project execution priorities and continuously reassess plans based on technical progress, business needs, dependencies, and available resources. Facilitate appropriate software development ceremonies and project reviews, including standups, sprint planning, backlog reviews, retrospectives, and milestone reviews, while maintaining alignment with the team's existing GitLab-based workflow. Monitor project performance against commitments and drive corrective actions when schedule, scope, dependencies, or execution performance begins to deviate from plan. Resource Allocation, Prioritization & Work Intake — 35% Manage software engineering resource allocation across projects, ensuring engineers are appropriately assigned based on skills, priorities, workload, and project needs. Establish and maintain a clear work-intake and prioritization process so that new software requests are deliberately evaluated before being assigned to the team. Work with engineering leads to determine the highest-value activities for the team and ensure resources remain focused on agreed priorities. Proactively identify when new projects or requests should be queued rather than immediately started, clearly communicating capacity limitations, priorities, and associated tradeoffs to leadership and stakeholders. Support forward-looking capacity planning by identifying upcoming resource gaps, competing project demands, and potential staffing needs. Cross-Functional Coordination, Risk & Stakeholder Communication — 25% Coordinate software project activities across geographically distributed teams spanning multiple continents and time zones, maintaining alignment despite limited overlapping working hours. Identify and surface project risks, technical blockers, dependencies, and resource conflicts early, and drive the appropriate owners toward resolution before delivery commitments are affected. Maintain clear and consistent communication with Software Engineering leadership, Program Management, Systems Engineering, and other cross-functional stakeholders regarding project status, priorities, risks, and resource decisions. Establish appropriate escalation paths for issues that cannot be resolved within the Software Engineering team. Ensure project decisions, priorities, commitments, and changes are clearly documented and communicated across affected teams. Provide concise project-level reporting to management, highlighting progress, upcoming milestones, major risks, resource constraints, decisions required, and recovery actions. Your Boarding Pass: (Required for consideration) Must possess a Bachelor's degree in a technical field (Computer Science, Engineering, or Information Systems). Must have a minimum of five (5) years of experience in project or program management, with a significant portion of that spent managing software development projects specifically. Proven ability to manage resource allocation and prioritization across teams supporting multiple concurrent projects and competing demands. Demonstrated proficiency in tracking and communicating project status using structured planning and reporting tools such as Smartsheet, JIRA, or equivalent platforms. Strong background partnering with software engineering teams and translating technical progress, risks, and schedule impacts into clear, actionable communication for leadership and non-technical stakeholders. Preferred Skills: Background as a software engineer or technical contributor prior to moving into project/program management. Direct experience with GitLab (issues, boards, milestones) as a day-to-day engineering tracking tool. Experience managing or coordinating distributed/global teams across significant time zone differences. Experience operating in a company where team-level tooling (e.g., GitLab) differs from corporate-level tooling (e.g., JIRA), and bridging visibility between the two. Experience in aerospace, defense, robotics, or other hardware-adjacent software environments. Experience supporting software development programs subject to DO-178C or similar safety-critical software standards, with an understanding of how certification requirements influence project planning, deliverables, schedule, and verification activities. PMP (Project Management Professional) or equivalent certification. Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), SAFe, or similar Agile/Scrum certification. Travel Required: Minimal - 5% Domestic and International Citizenship: Must be a US Person under ITAR definition (U.S. Citizen, green card holder or person covered under our existing ITAR license) Physical Requirements: Onsite or remote: 80% onsite in Bingen, WA. Vision: able to see and read computer screens and other electronic equipment with screens, able to read documents, reports and engineering drawings. Daily H