Program Manager

Sateliot is a Barcelona-based satellite company with one goal: connect everything, everywhere. Founded in 2018, we've built the first satellite constellation that lets standard commercial devices communicate directly from space. Our technology bridges the gaps that terrestrial networks will never reach, bringing affordable and secure connectivity to industries, governments, and communities across the planet.

Learn more: https://sateliot.space/

About the team & this role

At Sateliot, we are looking for a Senior Project Manager to take programmatic ownership of one or several mission domains within our space programs.

In this role, you will act as the programmatic owner of your assigned domain, safeguarding delivery across scope, schedule, cost, and risk, and ensuring alignment with mission-level objectives and calendar commitments.

Reporting directly to the Mission Director, you will translate high-level mission goals into structured execution logic, maintain a coherent baseline, anticipate and quantify risks, and provide decision-oriented visibility on progress and deviations.

You will operate at the intersection of technical complexity and delivery discipline, working by influence across technical leads and cross-functional stakeholders to maintain coherence between technical evolution and programmatic control.

This position requires a professional who combines structured program management with the agility, ownership mindset, and resilience required in a schedule-driven New Space environment.

What you'll do

Cross-Domain Leadership & Alignment

• Act as the programmatic focal point for your assigned domain, ensuring strong coordination between engineering, MAIT, procurement, quality, and operations when applicable.
• Facilitate alignment across teams with different technical perspectives, ensuring clarity of priorities, interfaces, and delivery expectations.
• Work primarily through influence with technical leads and multiple stakeholders, maintaining programmatic discipline without replacing technical authority.
• Proactively address conflicts, misalignments, or ambiguities that could impact mission objectives, facilitating resolution with a strong focus on delivery outcomes and activating escalation when required.

Baseline Ownership & Delivery Control

• Own and maintain the programmatic baseline of your domain, including integrated schedule, key milestones, and performance indicators.
• Ensure continuous visibility of scope, schedule, cost, and risk performance.
• Report progress and deviations with a decision-oriented approach, clearly articulating impacts, trade-offs, and recommended actions.

Risk Management & Anticipation

• Identify, structure, and maintain a living risk register for your domain.
• Anticipate schedule, technical, and resource risks, proposing mitigation plans before issues materialize.
• Evaluate the programmatic impact of technical decisions and escalate when necessary.

Structured Planning & Execution Control

• Develop and maintain detailed execution plans aligned with mission-level milestones and critical paths.
• Track progress at work package level, ensuring visibility of dependencies, interfaces, and potential bottlenecks.
• Ensure corrective actions are defined and implemented when scope, cost, or schedule drift is detected.

Dependency & Interface Management

• Map and actively manage cross-domain dependencies.
• Ensure coherence of interfaces, inputs/outputs, and milestone readiness across parallel work streams.
• Safeguard delivery integrity during critical integration and validation phases.

Budget & Resource Oversight

• Monitor budget execution within your assigned domain and maintain alignment between technical evolution and financial constraints.
• Support cost control, trade-off analysis, and resource allocation decisions in coordination with the Mission Director.

Operational Readiness for Critical Phases

• Ensure readiness of your domain for critical campaigns and transition phases (e.g., MAIT, environmental testing, shipment, launch preparation, commissioning), when applicable.

What you bring

• Engineering degree or equivalent professional experience in complex technical program environments.
• Demonstrated experience managing high-complexity programs or projects with multi-team dependencies, preferably within the space or aerospace/defense sectors, with real ownership of cost, schedule, and risk.
• Proven ability to operate effectively in schedule-driven, high-uncertainty environments, maintaining clarity of priorities and structured decision-making under delivery pressure.
• Proven ability to lead by influence across multidisciplinary teams, operating effectively within diverse and cross-functional environments.
• Demonstrated experience managing project budgets and resource allocation with accountability for financial performance.
• Strong and practical experience in active risk management, including early identification, quantification, mitigation planning, and structured escalation.
• Exposure to Assembly, Integration & Test (AIT/MAIT) campaigns and/or major verification, validation, or test events, even from a programmatic coordination perspective.
• Demonstrated ability to translate technical decisions into programmatic impact (schedule, cost, risk), articulating trade-offs and structured options for leadership decision-making.
• Practical knowledge of predictive and hybrid project management methodologies, applying the minimum effective level of process required to sustain delivery.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate technical conflicts, align stakeholders with diverging priorities, and maintain delivery focus under pressure.
• Excellent communication skills in English, both written and spoken.

Bonus if you have

• Familiarity with ECSS standards or equivalent space program governance frameworks.
• PMP or equivalent certification.
• Experience across the full lifecycle of space missions (design AIT launch commissioning).
• Experience managing suppliers, subcontractors, and external partners.

How we work

We lead with humility, move fast, and take ownership. We collaborate without ego and measure ourselves by real impact, not titles or hierarchy. We hire people who already live these values.

What we offer

• Real impact on one of Europe’s most ambitious space projects.
• Growth: we cover 50% of courses or master’s degrees (up to 5% of your salary), plus Spanish and Catalan classes.
• Health & balance: 50% on private health insurance and Urban Sports Club, a flexible schedule, and hybrid work, we focus on results, not hours.
• Flexible Compensation: flexible compensation through Cobee (meal, transport, kindergarten).
• A truly global team: 20+ nationalities building something genuinely new - and genuinely nice to work with. Great vibes, real teamwork.
• A real welcome: a dedicated buddy from day one.
• Life outside work: we organize leisure and sports activities both during and outside working hours - because great teams connect beyond the screen.
• Catering: if you don´t have time to cook, we partner with a catering company so a freshmeal is sorted, no need to think about it.
• Parking: on-site parking at the office, with Sateliot covering 50% of the cost - plus free bike parking if you prefer to pedal in.

Sound like you?

Apply now!

Sateliot is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and business needs, without discrimination on the basis of any legally protected characteristic.