Sr Manager, People Experience Programs

About The Team

Anduril is building the technology that will transform defense and national security. Our People team ensures the organization scales as fast as the problems we're solving — and People Experience is at the center of how employees actually feel that scale.

People Experience is a global function responsible for the moments that shape an employee's relationship with Anduril — from their first day through alumni status. We own the global onboarding program, the regional engagement strategy, company-wide engagement survey, the alumni program, and other engagement related programming. This role sits within that umbrella but is focused on the regional engagement strategy, employee listening, and the alumni program.

The People Experience function is being built, not maintained — we are actively defining the operating model and programming portfolio. This role will be instrumental in shaping and informing that build alongside the Head of People Experience. If you want to inherit a playbook, this isn't the role. If you want to write one, keep reading.

About The Job

We are looking for a Senior Manager, People Experience Programs to serve as the strategic and operational backbone of Anduril's People Experience function. You will be the connective tissue across a portfolio that includes a global regionalized engagement strategy, the company-wide engagement survey, an alumni program, and the ongoing definition of what People Experience means at a defense technology company that is rapidly expanding.

This role is equal parts strategist and program manager. You will partner directly with the Head of People Experience to shape the function's direction — and then you'll be the one who makes it real. You need to be comfortable presenting to senior leadership, managing complex cross-functional programs across multiple geographies, and adapting your approach for different site populations and contexts.

What You'll Do

• Lead the program management and rollout of Anduril's global engagement strategy — a regionalized model designed to understand and address site-level engagement challenges through targeted programming across seven sites and regions worldwide.
• Own the end-to-end program management of the company-wide engagement survey, including launch planning, results analysis, communication strategy, and driving accountability for action planning across business units.
• Help launch and operationalize the Anduril Alumni Program, managing the program's day-to-day execution and implementation effort along various stakeholder groups.
• Partner with the Head of People Experience to shape and inform the function itself — identifying gaps in the employee experience, proposing new programming, building the case for investment in areas the function hasn't yet reached, and designing the frameworks and systems that will define how People Experience operates at scale.
• Serve as the primary program operator across the People Experience portfolio: building project plans, managing timelines, running stakeholder communications, and keeping complex multi-workstream initiatives on track.
• Build and manage strategic stakeholder relationships across the People organization — including People Business Partners, People Leadership and Development, Onboarding Regional Leads, and the People Experience Operations Manager — navigating competing priorities, building buy-in, and maintaining trust across a complex partner network.
• Work closely with our People Experience Operations Manager to leverage site health data, engagement metrics, and quality-of-hire insights — translating data into strategic recommendations and program adjustments.
• Present program strategy, progress, and outcomes to senior leadership with clarity, confidence, and full executive presence — translating operational detail into a strategic narrative that shapes organizational direction.
• Drive systems-level change: identify where processes, structures, or ways of working need to shift to support the engagement strategy, and build the coalitions to make those changes stick. You will lead change initiatives that span multiple teams and geographies, anticipating ripple effects and designing for interdependencies.
• Create new frameworks and systems where none exist — this function is being built, and you will be expected to design program architecture, evaluation methodology, and feedback loops rather than adapting existing ones.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in people programs, employee experience, engagement, organizational development, or program management within a People/HR function.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and evaluating employee experience or engagement programs end-to-end — not just executing someone else's playbook, but owning the full lifecycle from strategy through execution.
• You are motivated by our mission. We are working to solve the biggest problems in defense.
• Strong program management skills: you build structure in ambiguous environments, manage multiple concurrent workstreams, and drive complex cross-functional work to completion without waiting to be told what to do.
• Executive presence and communication skills that allow you to present confidently to senior leaders at the VP and C-suite level.
• Experience managing enterprise-wide stakeholder relationships (VP+ level) across multiple functions — you build strategic alliances, navigate competing priorities, and influence organizational direction through those relationships.
• Strategic thinking with global scope: you connect individual site-level programs to a coherent enterprise strategy, define the frameworks others execute against, and think about how decisions scale before you make them.
• Comfort with data: you can interpret engagement data, design evaluation methodology, build a case for investment, and adjust your approach based on what the numbers say. You think in systems — connecting employee experience outcomes to broader business strategy.
• You are both high ownership and low ego, approaching everything with strong outcome orientation and high humility.
• You thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments and get energy from building something from the ground up rather than maintaining the status quo.
• Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at high-growth technology or defense companies that have navigated rapid organizational scaling.
• Background in managing global or multi-region programs across different employee personas, cultural contexts, and timezones.
• Experience managing engagement survey programs end-to-end, including, launch, analysis, and action planning accountability.
• Experience building a people experience, employee engagement, or similar function from scratch — defining scope, making the case, and standing it up.
• Experience driving organizational or systems-level change management — not just launching programs, but shifting how an organization operates. You've anticipated systemic risks and designed mitigation strategies that protect the broader business.