Principal Technical Product Manager

Job Description
ECS is seeking a Principal Technical Product Manager to work in our Fairfax, VA office.
Position Overview

We are seeking a highly technical, mission-focused Principal Technical

Product Manager to lead rapid prototyping initiatives and emerging technology demonstrations that drive innovation and business growth. This role is responsible for translating cutting-edge ideas into tangible, demonstrable solutions that address real customer challenges.

The ideal candidate thrives in fast-paced environments, can move from concept to working prototype quickly, and excels at defining clear product outcomes, backlogs, and success metrics. This position serves as a critical bridge between strategy, capture, and delivery-ensuring innovative concepts become credible, secure, and executable mission-ready solutions.
Key Responsibilities
Rapid Prototyping & Technical Innovation

• Lead rapid prototyping "tiger team" efforts to design, build, and demonstrate proof-of-concept (POC) solutions within compressed development timelines.
• Architect and implement cloud-native, secure, and scalable prototype environments that showcase emerging technologies.
• Translate customer pain points, draft requirements, and mission scenarios into innovative and technically sound solution architectures, user stories, and prioritized prototype backlogs.
• Apply agile, Lean, and iterative development practices to accelerate experimentation, incorporate user feedback, and reduce technical risk.
• Evaluate the feasibility, maturity, cost, and security implications of emerging technologies before recommending enterprise adoption.

Product Management & Prototype-to-Product

• Own the prototype portfolio and roadmap: intake, prioritization, sequencing, and resourcing across multiple customer needs and strategic bets.
• Define measurable product outcomes (e.g., time saved, operator workload reduction, accuracy, throughput) and instrument prototypes to validate impact.
• Establish product requirements artifacts appropriate to phase (problem statements, PRFAQs/one-pagers, user journeys, acceptance criteria) to align stakeholders and accelerate delivery.
• Run lightweight discovery and validation (user interviews, workflow mapping, usability tests, A/B evaluations where applicable) and convert findings into iteration plans.
• Drive prototype-to-product transition planning: MVP scope, dependencies, technical debt triage, and release readiness criteria for production programs.
• Partner with engineering leads to make pragmatic tradeoffs across scope, schedule, quality, and security posture while preserving user value.

Emerging Technology Demonstrations

• Develop compelling, customer-facing technical demonstrations designed to support growth areas and capture strategies.
• Design demonstration environments and demo scripts that highlight differentiation, scalability, operational viability, and user outcomes.
• Support live demos, technical exchanges, industry events, and proposal orals; incorporate feedback loops to improve product-market fit for mission users.
• Convert successful prototypes into reusable reference architectures, demo kits, accelerators, and productizable components.

Architecture & Engineering Leadership

• Serve as a hands-on technical leader, contributing directly to architecture design, infrastructure as code (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, containerization, API integration, and data workflows.
• Embed DevSecOps and security-by-design principles throughout solutions, with clear maturity gates from demo → pilot → production.
• Ensure alignment with cloud best practices, cybersecurity frameworks, and enterprise architecture standards.
• Develop transition strategies to move validated prototypes into scalable production environments, including operational concepts, support models, and sustainment considerations.
• Document technical decisions and patterns so prototypes can be reused and scaled across programs and customers.

Business Development & Strategy

• Partner with capture and business development teams to identify high-impact technical discriminators and productizable accelerators.
• Provide technical and product thought leadership (one-pagers, whitepapers, concept briefs) and advise on innovation investments that strengthen competitive positioning.
• Maintain awareness of technology trends and emerging solution patterns; translate them into product opportunities and experiment proposals.
• Advise leadership on emerging technology adoption strategy, portfolio positioning, and where to standardize versus differentiate.
• Support proposal development by contributing to solution narratives, technical volumes, demo plans, and risk/mitigation approaches when needed.

Required Skills

• Active TS/SCI security clearance.
• Must be a US Citizen.
• Bachelor's degree in a technical field or equivalent relevant experience.
• 8-10+ years of experience designing and delivering enterprise technical solutions and/or technical products in cloud-native environments.
• Proven experience leading rapid prototyping or proof-of-concept initiatives and driving iteration based on user feedback.
• Strong solution architecture experience across AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation, Bicep).
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines and automation.
• Hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).
• Secure architecture and compliance considerations; ability to incorporate security early without slowing iteration.
• Ability to translate business requirements into scalable technical architectures and actionable product requirements (epics/user stories/acceptance criteria).
• Experience supporting proposal, capture, or customer-facing solutioning efforts.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience in Federal contracting environments preferred.

Desired Skills

• Experience with AI/ML, generative AI, advanced analytics, or data engineering platforms.
• Knowledge of Zero Trust architectures and modern cybersecurity frameworks.
• Experience with edge computing, digital engineering, MLOps, or automation frameworks.
• Experience defining and tracking product metrics and operational KPIs for mission workflows.
• Active security clearance preferred but not required.

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ECS is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate or allow discrimination on the basis any characteristic protected by law. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local jurisdiction law.

ECS is a leading mid-sized provider of technology services to the United States Federal Government. We are focused on people, values and purpose. Every day, our 3200+ employees focus on providing their technical talent to support the Federal Agencies and Departments of the US Government to serve, protect and defend the American People.