Programme Manager - Edinburgh - Bright Ascension Ltd

Description

Bright Ascension offers the chance to work at the forefront of the space industry, developing software that helps control real satellites in orbit. With an innovative, fast-growing environment, employees gain hands-on experience, rapid career development, and the opportunity to make a genuine impact on future space missions — all within a collaborative and modern workplace culture. As a member of the Product Engineering team, reporting to the Head of Product Engineering, your key responsibilities would be:

As a key member of our Product Engineering team, you would be responsible for delivery of a suite of nine interlinked software products that share a common architecture. The role will provide programme level planning, risk management, dependency tracking and delivery governance across a total of five teams that are either full stack or backend engineers, enabling the Head of Product Engineering to maintain alignment, stability and forward momentum across the product suite.

We see this role as being full time, although this is negotiable. Ideally, we would like this role to be based in Edinburgh on a hybrid basis, to allow for regular interaction with the teams responsible for Product Management, Customer delivery and operations, Finance, Business Development and Sales and Marketing.

What you will do

As a member of the Product Engineering team, reporting to the Head of Product Engineering, your key responsibilities would be:

Delivery planning & coordination

• Build and maintain the integrated delivery plan covering all nine products
• Identify and manage cross product and cross team dependencies
• Share responsibility for resource and capacity planning and management with the Head of Product Engineering
• Facilitate sequencing decisions with Engineering Leads, Architects and Technical Product Owners
• Ensure teams have clarity on priorities, timelines and shared deliverables

Risk, issue & change management

• Operate a programme level risk and issue log
• Analyse delivery risk across teams and escalate mitigation actions
• Run change impact assessments for architectural, process or scope changes
• Ensure risks and changes are transparent to leadership early

Governance & reporting

• Establish a light but effective governance model for engineering delivery
• Chair cross team delivery forums and dependency reviews
• Provide concise weekly and monthly delivery reporting to the Head of Product Engineering
• Maintain roadmap alignment between Product, Architecture and Engineering

Stakeholder engagement

• Work closely with Product Managers, Technical Product Owners and their engineering teams, Principal Engineers and QA leads
• Act as the coordination point between the five engineering teams for cross cutting work
• Communicate delivery expectations, outcomes and risks clearly and early

Process & ways of working

• Improve and standardise delivery processes across teams without adding friction
• Mature cross team planning, estimation and release coordination
• Support teams in adopting engineering delivery best practice

Team leadership

• Provide line management to a small team of scrum masters embedded in the engineering teams by supporting career development, holding regular 1:1 meetings and conducting annual reviews
• Lead by example, demonstrating excellent project management practices, while encouraging a constructive dialogue in all planning decisions
• Foster a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement and knowledge sharing between each other, and between the project management team and others
• Work with the project management team to ensure the engineering teams focus on realistic planning and continuous delivery

Essential skills & experience

We see experience with the following as essential to the job:

• Experience managing delivery in multiteam, multiproduct software engineering environments
• Strong understanding of software development lifecycle and modern engineering practices
• Proven ability to manage dependencies, risks and cross team communication
• Excellent organisational, planning and facilitation skills
• Experience working with full stack engineering teams

Personal skills

We're especially looking for someone who is:

• Calm, structured and reliable under pressure
• Able to balance detail with long term technical direction
• A strong relationship builder across engineering and product functions
• Proactive, outcome focused and pragmatic

Desirable skills & experience

We think that the following skills would definitely be valuable in this role:

• Experience in organisations delivering platform based or shared architecture products
• Knowledge of Agile at scale (Scrum of Scrums, SAFe, LeSS, etc)
• Exposure to cloud native engineering environments
• Background as a Delivery Manager, Programme Manager, Technical Programme Manager, or similar

What we can offer you

• A competitive salary in the range of £50k-£60k depending on experience, with regular reviews.
• A fantastic opportunity to join a growing, innovative, employee-centred business pushing boundaries in the space industry.
• Flexible hours and hybrid working, enabling you to create your ideal work life balance.
• 36 days paid holiday per annum.
• 6% employer pension contribution.
• Enhanced Company Sick Pay and Long-Term Sickness cover.
• A Health Cash Plan to cover costs such as dental, physio and optical.
• Life Assurance cover (x4 salary).
• As a member of the Bright Ascension team you would have a stake in the business through our Employee Benefit Trust.
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay.
• Opportunities for international travel for exhibitions and trade shows.
• Investment in you and your skill development and the opportunity to attend relevant events and conferences to aid career / skill development.
• Company events and regular activities for social engagement and team building.
• An open, supportive, inclusive environment where you can explore your ideas and make a big difference to the product and business.

About Bright Ascension

We are a fast growing, innovative company changing the way that software is developed in the space industry. With customers across the world, ranging from universities and space agencies, to commercial organisations and start-ups, our core technologies enable our customers to develop and operate space-based systems and services faster, more cost effectively and more reliably.

Innovation is at the heart of what we do and it is our team which drives that innovation; this is reflected in our commitment to employee ownership, which gives all of us a voice, and a stake, in our current and future success. With offices in Dundee, Edinburgh and Bristol we now have more than 50 members of staff and plans to expand significantly over the next 12 months. We are at a very exciting time in our ambitious growth plans and have fantastic opportunities for talented individuals to join our team.

Our Values

We worked together to identify and shape the values that underpin everything we do, our actions, our vision and all things Bright Ascension.

Passion & Innovation

Enjoy what you do and have fun. Be curious and be fearless. Unconventional ideas and passion are the paths to true innovation.

Teamwork & Collaboration

Sharing knowledge helps the team thrive. Start a dialogue and win through teamwork. Success comes through collaboration and support.

Respect & Integrity

Recognise differences and accept opinions. Integrity, respect and high standards create unbreakable trust and builds reputation.