Senior Manager, User Terminals

📋 Description

• • Own the end-to-end embedded software strategy for Telesat Lightspeed’s User Terminal segment, translating complex LEO satellite requirements into a world-class customer experience that delivers fiber-like speeds and ultra-low latency to enterprise users worldwide.
• • Build, mentor, and scale a high-performing, geographically distributed team of 20-30 software professionals—Principal Engineers, Software Architects, Scrum Masters, and emerging talent—across Ottawa and Bethesda, fostering a culture of technical excellence, psychological safety, and continuous learning.
• • Drive the technical roadmap for embedded Linux, real-time operating systems, RF front-end control, modem firmware, and cloud-edge orchestration, ensuring every line of code meets mission-critical reliability standards for aviation, maritime, government, and enterprise broadband markets.
• • Champion Agile-at-scale ceremonies, from sprint planning to quarterly OKR reviews, leveraging data-driven metrics (cycle time, defect escape rate, DORA metrics) to accelerate delivery while maintaining rigorous quality gates and automated regression coverage.
• • Architect and enforce CI/CD pipelines that span on-prem build farms, public cloud (AWS, Azure), and secure government enclaves, integrating static analysis, unit test gates, containerized test harnesses, and hardware-in-the-loop validation for satellite link emulation.
• • Partner with RF, mechanical, product management, and cybersecurity teams to decompose system-level requirements into sprint-ready user stories, balancing performance, power, thermal, and security trade-offs inherent in phased-array antennas and high-throughput modems.
• • Establish and track KPIs for software reliability, maintainability, and security (MTBF, CVE closure rate, code coverage >85%), presenting executive-level dashboards to the VP of Engineering and external customers such as airlines, telcos, and defense agencies.
• • Lead risk management rituals—FMEA, threat modeling, and scenario planning—to pre-empt schedule slips, budget overruns, and regulatory non-compliance under ITAR, CGP, and FCC Part 25 frameworks.
• • Instill a DevSecOps mindset across the org, automating vulnerability scanning, SBOM generation, and secure boot flows while mentoring teams on secure coding standards (MISRA-C, CERT, CWE).
• • Organize quarterly hackathons, brown-bag sessions, and patent workshops to cultivate innovation, resulting in at least two filed disclosures per year that strengthen Telesat’s IP portfolio.
• • Oversee budget planning and vendor negotiations for development tools, cloud credits, and third-party IP, applying FinOps best practices to keep annual spend within 5% of forecast.
• • Represent Telesat at global industry forums (Satellite, MWC, GVF), evangelizing the Lightspeed architecture and recruiting top-tier engineering talent from premier universities and competitors.
• • Ensure seamless collaboration across time zones (Ottawa, Bethesda, Bangalore subcontractors) using Slack, Jira, Confluence, and Miro, maintaining a 24-hour “follow-the-sun” handoff model.
• • Uphold Telesat’s 50-year legacy of engineering excellence by embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into hiring, performance reviews, and succession planning, achieving >40% diverse representation in new hires.
• • Travel internationally up to 20% to customer sites, integration labs, and launch campaigns, ensuring field feedback loops directly inform backlog prioritization and architectural pivots.