Product Manager/Fires SME

A commander looking at a recommended target and effect pairing asks two questions: why this, and why now? Target Effect Pairing (TEP) is a capability for USPACOM Joint Fires, built on the Maven Smart System, that answers both with AI recommendations a targeting staff can trace, explain, and audit. It speeds up capabilities analysis and the commander's decision and force assignment, while every inherently governmental decision stays with a human. Engineers can build the software. They can't tell on their own whether it reflects how joint targeting is really done.

That judgment is yours. You bring operational targeting experience and the working habits of a product manager, and you turn joint targeting doctrine, JFE and JTCB workflows, and target development standards into requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria. You work with a Senior UX Designer, software engineers and architects, and a Technical Program Manager who owns backlog priority and government acceptance. You own whether what gets built is operationally right.

Requirements are still forming, and much of the team has never worked in targeting. The recommendations this capability produces will also be independently assessed for quality, so output that merely looks reasonable won't hold up.

What Success Looks Like

Objective 1: In the first 90 days, give the team an accurate picture of how USPACOM targeting runs today

• Government targeteers review your map of the current workflow, from target development through nomination, approval, and assessment, and confirm it is accurate.
• Engineers and designers can say where each JFE or JTCB decision happens, and who holds the authority for it, without coming to you first.
• Where the command's practice departs from doctrine, the gap is written down along with which one the product follows and why.

Objective 2: Turn targeting doctrine and decision authority into requirements the team can build and test

• Engineers build from your user stories and acceptance criteria without a rework cycle over operational intent.
• Every inherently governmental decision point appears in the requirements, with the human approval it needs spelled out.
• Feature requests reach the backlog framed as the operational problem behind them, not only as the feature someone asked for.
• The Technical Program Manager gets priority recommendations grounded in operational value, with the reasoning visible.

Objective 3: By month six, prove that recommendations hold up before a commander sees them

• Representative scenarios and acceptance criteria test whether a pairing recommendation is complete, relevant, and defensible.
• Each recommendation answers why this and why now, with its assumptions and limits stated plainly enough for a targeteer to challenge.
• Operational problems show up in your scenarios first, rather than in government evaluation.

Objective 4: By the end of year one, make operator feedback what steers the product

• Demonstrations with targeteers, JFE and JTCB staff, and J32 operators produce feedback that changes what gets built next.
• Each capability has measures of success agreed before it is built, and you report against them after it ships.
• Government stakeholders hear progress, risks, and open decisions from you before they have to ask.

What You Bring

Minimum Qualifications

• Proven ability to drive progress and create clarity in fast moving, ambiguous environments. Ability to maintain required TS/SCI access.

Preferred Skills

• You have done targeting work at a combatant command, the Joint Staff, a component, or an Air Operations Center: target development, target systems analysis, or combat assessment. Joint Targeting School graduates are preferred.
• You have worked inside a JFE or JTCB process and can explain how its decisions get made, beyond having attended.
• You have owned requirements for a digital product. You led discovery, wrote user stories and acceptance criteria, and shaped a backlog a delivery team built from.
• You have explained the basis, assumptions, and limits of a targeting recommendation to people outside targeting, well enough that they could build from it.
• You have worked with UX and engineering teams through refinement, reviews, and demonstrations in Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, or a similar agile approach.
• You have worked in DoW, Joint, combatant command, Navy/NIWC, or CDAO mission environments, including government milestone reviews or acceptance processes.
• You are familiar with AI-enabled decision support, explainability, and human-machine teaming. Experience with Maven Smart System or Joint Targeting Toolbox is a plus.
• You use Jira, Confluence, or comparable product and agile delivery tools.

WORKING CONDITIONS

All work takes place in secure facilities. One position sits with the development team in Honolulu. One sits in the National Capital Region and travels 50% of the time.

Environmental Conditions

Work is primarily performed in professional office, Government, and technical development environments. This position requires regular on-site collaboration in the San Diego area, including work with Government and development stakeholders at or in support of NIWC-Pacific. Periodic travel may be required to support operational stakeholders and other mission activities. Work may occur in secure facilities with restrictions on personal electronic devices and remote connectivity.

Strength Demands

Sedentary to light physical demands associated with professional office and technical work environments. Occasional movement or transport of laptops, documents, and other standard work materials may be required.

Physical Requirements

Regular use of computers and standard office equipment; ability to participate in meetings, technical working sessions, and collaborative development activities for extended periods; ability to communicate effectively in person and through approved electronic means; and ability to travel as required.