Senior manager, solutions engineering – launch team readiness, west

Skydio is the leading US drone company and the world leader in autonomous flight, the key technology for the future of drones and aerial mobility. The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best-in-class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users, from utility inspectors to first responders, soldiers in battlefield scenarios, and beyond.

About the Role:

Skydio is seeking an experienced operations leader to join our team as Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering for Launch Team Readiness, West. This role leads the readiness function for the western half of the dock business, owning the customer journey from pre-sales readiness — technical, policy, and operational — through deployment, training, and go-live, and it is measured on the team's outcomes rather than your own: on-time deployments, smooth launches, and confident customers.

This is a remote role. Travel of 50 to 60% is required to support customer engagements, field activities, deployments, team onsites, and company events, with heavier travel expected during periods of team growth and onboarding.

This role reports to the Director, Launch Team.

About the Team:

The Launch Team is the operational arm of Skydio's dock business. We sit between the opportunity and the running program, and readiness means everything an agency needs to launch: the site, the policy and public approval behind it, the flight operation that will run it, and a clean handoff to Customer Success. We do not perform every piece of that work, but we project manage the customer to all of it and are accountable for the date.

The team is measured on time-to-launch, readiness gate adherence, deployment schedule performance, and the condition of the program at handoff. Readiness capacity is sized against dock site volume, so the function has to scale faster than headcount.

Readiness Specialists are critical members of the Skydio organization and work closely with Solutions Engineers, Deployment Engineering, Legal and Policy, and Customer Success to support successful deployments and the long-term success of Public Safety sUAS programs.

How You’ll Make an Impact:

• Lead the team
• Hire, onboard, coach, and retain your team of Readiness Specialists, with clear ownership and coverage across the accounts in your region, and develop people beyond the seat they are in.
• Set the bar for readiness quality — site readiness standards, launch checklists, training delivery, and handoff documentation that hold up in front of a chief, a sheriff, or a city council.
• Own capacity and account assignment across your region, balancing launch complexity against specialist experience, and make the tradeoffs visible to leadership.
• Drive on-time launches
• Own the health of the readiness portfolio across the West region, with visibility into site readiness, policy and approval milestones, deployment and training progress, and launch criteria on every active account.
• Identify at-risk launches early and drive resolution, escalating when blockers exceed the team's authority, and directly own complex, strategic, or recovering launches when the situation warrants.
• Work closely with your counterpart in the East so the two halves of the readiness function run one motion rather than two.
• Partner with Sales and Solutions Engineering leadership to align readiness capacity with pipeline, and advise on site feasibility and launch requirements for strategic pursuits.
• Own the readiness problem set
• Develop and maintain the readiness playbook: launch checklists, site readiness standards, policy and approval templates, flight readiness criteria, documentation, and handoff criteria.
• Make the definition of readiness legible to customers. Agencies routinely underestimate the policy, approval, and staffing work, and naming it early is what protects the launch date.
• Hold the line on readiness gates. Deployment prerequisites are verified before a dock ships, on every account, without exception.
• Identify patterns and recurring blockers across launches and drive systemic fixes rather than one-off workarounds, so the function scales against dock volume rather than headcount.
• Represent the customer inside Skydio
• Be the aggregated voice of the customer to Product and Engineering, and the escalation point for cross-team conflicts affecting launch timelines.
• Ensure a clean post-launch handoff to Customer Success, with clear documentation of configuration, policy commitments, and readiness status, and maintain first-hand product knowledge through frequent hands-on use.

What Makes You a Good Fit:

• 5+ years of relevant experience in a customer-facing operations, deployment, implementation, or project delivery role, including work with public safety customers.
• 1+ years leading a team, formally or as a lead with hiring and mentorship responsibility. First-time managers with a demonstrated record of leading and developing people will be considered.
• Familiarity with Drone as First Responder concepts of operation and dock based remote operations. Professional experience is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex, cross-functional initiatives with multiple stakeholders and competing priorities, and to build repeatable process in an ambiguous environment.
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail. Comfortable managing timelines, dependencies, and readiness gates across a portfolio.
• Excellent written and verbal communication. You can brief an operator, a program manager, and a senior executive without changing the facts.
• Lead by example. Willing to do whatever is needed to get a customer situation resolved.

Nice to Have

• Prior public safety service, or experience standing up a Drone as First Responder program on the agency side.
• Experience supporting an agency through a public approval process — council or board authorization, public comment, or privacy and data retention policy.
• Experience with dock-based, remote, and BVLOS operations at scale, and with site survey, RF and LTE assessment, and network readiness for fixed installations.
• Experience owning a customer onboarding or implementation function through a period of rapid growth.
• Working knowledge of Salesforce, Palantir, Databricks, or equivalents.

What Is Required

• Ability to travel 50 to 60% of the time, with heavier travel during periods of team growth and onboarding.
• Ability to lift up to 60 lbs unaided.
• Obtaining FAA Part 107 certification within the first 60 days of employment is strongly encouraged for all Skydio employees and required for certain positions.

Compensation:

At Skydio, our compensation packages for regular, full-time employees include competitive base salaries, equity in the form of stock options, and comprehensive benefits packages. Compensation will vary based on factors, including skill level, proficiencies, transferable knowledge, and experience. Relocation assistance may also be provided for eligible roles. The annual base salary range for this position is $187,000 - $220,000* plus bonus. Fundamentally, we believe that equity is the key to long-term financial growth, and we ensure all regular, full-time employees have the opportunity to significantly benefit from the company's success. Regular, full-time employees are eligible to enroll in the Company’s group health insurance plans. Regular, full-time employees are eligible to receive the following benefits: Paid vacation time, sick leave, holiday pay and 401K savings plan. This position and all associated benefits are subject to applicable federal, state, and local laws, as well as the Company’s policies and eligibility criteria.

*Compensation for certain positions may vary based on the position’s location.

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At Skydio we believe that diversity drives innovation. We have created a multidisciplinary environment that embraces the power of diverse perspectives to create elegant solutions for complex problems. We are committed to growing our network of people, programs, and resources to nurture an inclusive culture.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or other characteristics protected by federal, state, and local anti-discrimination laws.

For positions located in the United States of America, Skydio, Inc. uses E-Verify to confirm employment eligibility. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, please visit https://www.e-verify.gov/