Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering – Launch Team Readiness, West

About this role

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 https://www.skydio.com/solutions/energy-and-utilities to first responders https://www.skydio.com/solutions/public-safety, soldiers in battlefield scenarios https://www.skydio.com/solutions/national-security/tactical-isr, and beyond https://www.skydio.com/solutions.

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 weastern 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…