Deployment Lead, USAF

andurilindustries

Irvine, California, United States; Washington, District of Columbia, United States · Irvine · United States

Posted Aug 19, 2026

Full-time
AFS : Air Defense Engineering : Mission Operations

Job description

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

About the Team

Anduril’s Air Defense team builds robots that find other robots and knock them out of the sky. At a time when air superiority can no longer be taken for granted, we provide mission critical capabilities to warfighters. From detection to tracking, identification, deterrence, and defeat, our family of networked sensors and effectors enables our customers to rapidly close the kill chain against a broad range of UAS threats. Working across product, engineering, sales, logistics, operations, and mission success, the Air Defense team develops, tests, deploys, and sustains our Family of Systems (FoS) in challenging operational environments worldwide.

About the Job

In your role as a Mission Operations Deployment Lead on the Air Defense team, you are responsible for delivering and sustaining a capability that meets our customers’ mission requirements and exceeds their expectations. You fulfill this responsibility through rigorous operational execution, detail orientation, proactive communication, deep mission understanding, and hard-won product expertise. You feel ownership over the health and performance of all assets and technologies deployed to your customers and users, and ensure that the system delivers when they need it most. You represent Anduril to our customers, building their confidence and trust through your professionalism and commitment to excellence. You also represent our customers back to Anduril, communicating user feedback and lessons learned to continuously improve our product and our team in response to evolving mission needs. Above all, you set the standard for what good looks like for your deployment, and you rally your Anduril teammates to meet that standard every single day.

In this role, you will manage domestic deployments of Anduril’s Air Defense products while ensuring mission readiness to support national security infrastructure. Collaborating closely with the Program Manager and Program Chief Engineer, you will play a crucial role in developing long-term deployment and sustainment operations aligned with customer priorities. As a key team member, you will engage across multiple business lines and facilitate customer interactions, making flexibility, humility, and a collaborative mindset essential qualities for success.

What You’ll Do

Deployment planning and execution: We execute hundreds of deployment events each year, including site installations, test and evaluation exercises, demonstrations, and training and maintenance visits. You will orchestrate these events, leading a cross-functional team that spans hardware supply, logistics, engineering, and more to do whatever it takes to achieve mission success for Anduril and our customers. Meticulous, resourceful, and detailed-oriented, you will manage every step of the deployment process, from site survey to testing, pack-out, installation, training, and sustainment. No job is too small. You consistently demonstrate extraordinary judgment, grit, and composure in high-pressure situations. You anticipate every contingency, build lightweight processes, soberly assess and mitigate risk, and deliberately learn from your experiences to continuously improve.
Relationship management: Build trust with customers, industry partners, users, and Anduril teammates through effective communication, positive attitude, and follow-through. With careful listening and observation, you internalize your counterpart’s priorities and requirements. With empathy and responsiveness, you quickly build rapport, trust, and confidence in our capability. You develop relationships across the organization and communicate honestly and directly. You are committed to giving and receiving feedback well. Your partners always know what you expect from them, and know exactly what to expect from you.
Mission expertise: Develop a deep knowledge of your customer’s mission requirements, including the nature of the threats they face, regulatory challenges, resource constraints, rules of engagement, and more. You will become a subject matter expert and the voice of the customer, capable of effectively communicating requirements and CONOPS to Anduril engineers so they can continue to enhance our capability to meet evolving mission needs. You are deeply motivated to shape the future of air defense.
Product expertise: Develop a thorough understanding of the capabilities and limitations of Anduril’s Family of Systems. You are innately curious about the technology underpinning our capability, and are not satisfied with a superficial understanding of how and why it works. You are constantly educating yourself about the strengths and weaknesses of different sensor modalities, the challenges of sensor fusion, power and networking requirements, and more. You will become an opinionated power user who can reliably forecast how our capability will perform against a broad range of threat profiles, environmental conditions, and mission constraints.

Required qualifications

Advanced degree or 3-5+ years experience in a technical field, preferably in the defense, national security, or aerospace domain
Highly organized creative problem-solver with proven project management skills
Experienced in the creation and upkeep of documentation for new or developing processes
Proven experience leading tech-enabled teams of peers while building a culture of influence through relationships
Deep interest in national security issues and defense technologies, with a commitment to lifelong learning
Experience translating technical concepts into operational requirements and performance specifications
Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and prioritize tasks effectively
Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance
Willing to travel up to 50% of the time

US Salary Range

$112,000—$149,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.

Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams

Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.

To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:

No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.
Please always verify communications:
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- Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to contact@anduril.com.
Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach: If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.
What to Do If You Suspect Fraud: Should you encounter any questionable or fraudulent outreach claiming to be from Anduril, please report it immediately to contact@anduril.com. Your proactive caution is invaluable in protecting your personal information and upholding the security and trustworthiness of our recruitment efforts.

Data Privacy

To view Anduril's candidate data privacy policy, please visit https://anduril.com/applicant-privacy-notice/.

By submitting your application, you consent to Anduril Industries using a third-party service provider to conduct pre-employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening and assessing potential risks as part of your application process. This third-party service provider provides risk-intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public-record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third-party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Use of this provider helps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and protect technology, intellectual property, and organizational security.