Director, Program Planning & Controls

HawkEye 360 is seeking a Director, Program Planning & Controls (PP&C) to lead the disciplined planning, execution oversight for HawkEye 360's Engineering Organization. This role ensures that program baselines are established, maintained, and executed effectively through integrated planning, financial control, risk management, and cross-functional coordination. The Director, PP&C works closely with Technical Program Managers, Engineering leadership, Finance, supply chain, and other stakeholders to ensure program objectives are achieved on schedule, within budget, and in alignment with organizational goals.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in program controls, strong analytical and communication skills, and the ability to support teams in delivering clear, actionable insights to support decisionmaking.

Your main responsibilities will be:

Program Planning

• Lead development of program schedules, master planning artifacts, and integrated program baselines across engineering programs.
• Ensure cross-functional alignment across engineering teams and among engineering program stakeholders.
• Maintain schedule integrity through structured updates, critical path analysis, and risk-adjusted planning.
• Facilitate planning sessions, working groups, and baseline change reviews.

Program Performance Management

• Develop and maintain program performance dashboards and metrics (schedule, cost, milestones, staffing, risk).
• Analyze program health and provide clear insights, trends, and actionable recommendations to leadership.
• Identify performance deviations and work with TPMs in establishing recovery planning activities.

Cost, Budget, and Financial Control

• Support development of program budgets, forecasts, and long-range planning estimates.
• Partner with Finance to reconcile actuals, validate projections, and ensure alignment to program realities.
• Track cost performance and lead variance analysis, including root cause and corrective action activities.
• Ensure consistent and accurate financial reporting to internal and external stakeholders.

Cross-Functional Coordination & Communication

• Serve as the primary focal for planning and control processes within the program team.
• Partner with engineering and other internal stakeholders to ensure alignment on priorities, constraints, and impacts.
• Prepare and deliver clear communication packages for gate reviews, leadership updates, and customer engagements.
• Promote a culture of transparency, accountability, and structured execution.

Governance & Continuous Improvement

• Ensure program planning artifacts comply with internal standards and engineering processes.
• Drive adoption of best practices in scheduling, cost controls, and performance analysis.
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives to streamline PP&C workflows and enhance delivery efficiency.

Your skills and qualifications:
Essential education and experience:

• 10+ years of experience in program planning, program controls, project management, or engineering program execution.
• Proven expertise indeveloping and managing integrated program schedulesusing tools such as MS Project, Primavera, Jira, or equivalent.
• Demonstrated ability to managecost control,budget forecasting,variance analysis, and performance metrics.
• Strong analytical skills with experience generating program performance dashboards or executive-level reporting packages.
• Solid understanding of engineering workflows, development lifecycles, and cross-functional coordination across engineering teams.
• Ability to facilitate planning sessions, drive alignment across stakeholders, and enforce structured execution discipline.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience presenting to senior leadership.

Desirable:

• Experience incomplex, multi-disciplinary engineering programs(aerospace, defense, energy, automotive, advanced manufacturing, or similar).
• Working knowledge ofEarned Value Management (EVM)practices or compliance requirements.
• Familiarity with formal programmatic frameworks, program governance processes, and phase-gate methodologies.
• Background in leading program controls teams or mentoring junior analysts.
• Exposure toAgileor hybrid project methodologies and integrating iterative planning into master scheduling.