Senior Product Manager, Mid-Atlantic

RTI is seeking a Sr. Product Manager in the Mid-Atlantic region to drive the future of real-time software in the Aerospace & Defense (A&D) industry. RTI Connext software powers over 500 defense programs across land, sea, air, and space. We are looking for a product manager who possesses insights into emerging trends, particularly UAS, Autonomy, Maritime, and related mission systems.

In this role, you’ll drive product strategy for how Connext serves A&D customers. You’ll translate mission requirements into clear product needs, shape the roadmap with R&D, and ensure RTI’s platform solves real problems for defense programs.

This role is a fit for someone who enjoys defining what to build and why , grounding product decisions in customer needs, mission outcomes, and market realities.

✨ What You’ll Do / Responsibilities:

- Own the A&D product direction

- Build a deep view of UAS, autonomy, maritime, C-UAS, and JADC2/MOSA requirements and how they shape needs for distributed systems, security, real-time data, and interoperability.

- Translate customer/mission requirements into clear product requirements, use cases, and roadmap proposals.

- Represent the voice of the defense customer

- Conduct product discovery: pain points, operational workflows, constraints, integration patterns.

- Validate roadmap direction with key customers and convert insights into actionable product decisions.

- Shape RTI’s platform for A&D use cases

- Identify capability gaps and growth opportunities across key defense applications.

- Work with other Product and Engineering stakeholders to prioritize capabilities required for A&D adoption i.e. security, interoperability, platform support, performance, tooling, and integration needs.

- Collaborate with Sales and BD to optimize pricing, licensing, and the overall product strategy to ensure streamlined adoption within target accounts.

- Partner cross-functionally for successful adoption

- Partner with Sales, BD, and Marketing to translate technical capabilities into compelling value propositions and differentiators.

- Develop product positioning that help Sales and BD teams win new business in the top DoD priorities.

- Contribute to strategic go-to-market plans for key programs and partners. This includes strategic resource allocation decisions, including analyzing the ROI of existing programs/consortia (e.g., FACE) and ensuring resources are redirected to high-growth areas like Autonomy and C-UAS.

- Contribute to sales materials (battlecards, demo scripts, decks) and help train field teams on messaging and differentiation.

- Market & competitive insight

- Build and maintain deep insight into the competitive landscape, customer missions, and government modernization trends.

- Use this insight to drive RTI’s long-term A&D product strategy.

🎯 What We’re Looking For / Requirements:

- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical field (or equivalent military/industry experience).

- Strong understanding of UAS and/or Maritime systems, including autonomy, edge computing, mission control, and data distribution.

- Ability to connect technical features (e.g., data-centric middleware, security, interoperability) to mission outcomes and business value.

- Ability to collaborate across Product, Engineering, Sales, Marketing and Professional Services to align on strategy and execution.

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills - clear, concise, and strategic.

- Travel about 25% to customer sites and corporate/market events.

- US Citizenship required* - *Due to applicable laws, government regulations and contract specifications, we are required to fill this position only with an individual who qualifies as a "U.S. Citizen."

Don’t meet every single requirement? At RTI, we are dedicated to building a fair and inclusive workplace so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t perfectly align with all qualifications in the job descripti