JOIN THE ALLIANCE

PRODUCT MANAGER

A product manager (PM) navigates difficult prioritization problems, balances different equities (stakeholder desires, user needs, etc.), and focuses the team’s effort on building the next most valuable thing. The PM manages day-to-day cross-functional activities through the practice of lean/agile software methodologies. Using a flat management structure, the PM creates and prioritizes user stories that balance business priorities, user needs, and technical complexity. By continuously interfacing with customers and stakeholders, the PM sets development priorities to reach business goals of a product.

Air Force member inspects a bomb being mounted to a fighter jet.
US Air Force fighter jet under maintenance.

PRODUCT DESIGNER

A product designer is responsible for uncovering the context, needs, and behaviors of users so that the team can translate learnings into viable software solutions. This role is commonly referred to as the “empathizer in chief” for the advocacy and user equity it brings to a balanced team. A designer does not simply ask users what they want, but instead acts as an intelligent filter to holistically examine a user’s problem space in order to extrapolate efficiencies and identify pain points. The designer’s duty isthe overall research of the product to include observational inquiry, user interviews, the creation of prototypes and validation of features, user interface (UI), and the overall user experience (UX) of the product.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

Software Developers work with a team’s product managers and designers to estimate the complexity or feasibility of a particular user story. They are responsible for making technical decisions and translating user stories into deliverable code. Software Developers follow the practices and values of Extreme Programming (XP) combined with a paired programming model. At any given time there are two Developers working together on the same story. Developers use Test Driven Development (TDD) to implement user stories. A Developer’s goal is to deliver user value as quickly as possible while using TDD to build confidence in the code being delivered.

US military members jumping out of a cargo plane and opening parachutes
USAF cargo planes in formation on a runway.

PLATFORM OPERATIONS

The team of Platform Operations specialists works on a large-scale, distributed, fault-tolerant cloud based system following best practices from Agile and DevOps. The team utilizes Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) to provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and seeks to continuously improve the state of the running development environment through automation and the addition of new capabilities.

If interested in joining the team, please contact Kessel Run Experimentation Lab (KREL) Director, Adam Furtado at adam.furtado.3@us.af.mil

If interested in contracting opportunities please contact Kessel Run Contracting Officer Kristina Botehlo at kristina.botelho@us.af.mil