--- title: 'Sr. Manager, Mission Engineering & Operations at Axon' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/sr-manager-mission-engineering-operations-axon-columbia-bkm44cxqpknq' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-03' --- # Sr. Manager, Mission Engineering & Operations at Axon - **Company:** Axon - **Location:** Columbia, SC - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-10-01 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-03 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/axon/jobs/8010141003 ## Job description Join Axon and be a Force for Good. At Axon, we’re on a mission to Protect Life. We’re explorers, pursuing society’s most critical safety and justice issues with our ecosystem of devices and cloud software. Like our products, we work better together. We connect with candor and care, seeking out diverse perspectives from our customers, communities and each other. Life at Axon is fast-paced, challenging and meaningful. Here, you’ll take ownership and drive real change. Constantly grow as you work hard for a mission that matters at a company where you matter. ## Your Impact You will lead a team of Mission Engineers who serve as Axon’s embedded builders and operational partners inside strategic public safety agencies. Mission Engineers work face-to-face with the people doing the work, diagnose how the agency operates, and build the workflows, automations, integrations, and AI-enabled solutions that measurably improve it. As Senior Manager, you will create the environment in which that work succeeds. You will coach experienced individual contributors, set a clear bar for technical delivery and agency partnership, and help the team turn ambiguous field problems into secure, maintainable solutions that reach production and earn sustained adoption. You will stay close enough to the portfolio to recognize patterns, anticipate risk, and connect what the team learns in the field back to Product, Engineering, and the broader organization. Success is reflected in agencies becoming more capable, Mission Engineers growing into trusted transformation leaders, and strong field solutions becoming reusable patterns that benefit customers beyond a single engagement. Axon’s mission is to Protect Life, and this team is one of the most direct ways we advance that mission alongside the agencies we serve. ## What You’ll Do Location: Southeast US Regionally based with Travel up to 40% Reports to: Senior Director, Customer Deployment & Mission Engineering Direct Reports:  Individual Contributors Lead, Coach, and Develop Mission Engineers - Lead and develop a distributed team of embedded Mission Engineers working across strategic agency environments - Coach individual contributors through complex technical decisions, ambiguous customer problems, executive conversations, and high-stakes delivery moments - Establish clear expectations for ownership, technical quality, onsite partnership, production delivery, adoption, documentation, and measurable agency impact - Build individualized development plans and create opportunities for Mission Engineers to expand their technical range, executive presence, and transformation leadership - Foster a culture of curiosity, candor, responsible experimentation, continuous learning, and shared accountability - Support thoughtful team growth by selecting and onboarding people who can both build practical solutions and earn credibility with agency stakeholders Set the Bar for Agency Outcomes - Ensure Mission Engineers begin with the agency’s mission, operational workflow, and desired outcome before selecting or building a solution - Require clear baselines, success criteria, and adoption measures so impact is demonstrated rather than assumed - Guide the team from discovery through production use, iteration, handoff, and sustained adoption - Help Mission Engineers balance immediate agency needs with secure, maintainable, and scalable solution design - Reinforce that success means the agency is more capable—not that one individual has become indispensable Own a Strategic Mission Engineering Portfolio - Maintain visibility across strategic agencies, active builds, adoption progress, technical risk, and emerging operational needs - Match Mission Engineer capability and level to agency complexity, transformation opportunity, and stakeholder environment - Use operating reviews and portfolio data to identify delivery risks, recurring friction, adoption barriers, and opportunities for reuse - Step into critical situations with structure and calm while coaching the accountable Mission Engineer to remain in ownership - Drive consistent execution across embedded engagements without forcing every agency problem into the same playbook Advance Technical and AI-Enabled Delivery - Maintain sufficient fluency across SaaS, cloud services, APIs, enterprise integrations, hardware, data, and modern AI tooling to coach technical decisions and challenge weak reasoning - Help the team decide when to configure the platform, when to extend it, and when a net-new build is justified - Establish expectations for validation, observability, fallback paths, maintainability, documentation, and responsible use of sensitive data - Ensure solutions uphold CJIS requirements, evidence integrity, privacy, approved-tooling standards, and other applicable security controls - Encourage practical use of AI to accelerate work while preserving human ownership of architecture, accuracy, and outcomes Turn Field Learning Into Organizational Leverage - Build mechanisms for Mission Engineers to document and share reusable workflows, integrations, frameworks, and playbooks - Identify patterns across agencies and help convert successful one-off solutions into repeatable capabilities - Create strong feedback loops with Product and Engineering around recurring workflow friction, unmet operational needs, and product opportunities - Partner with Mission Operators, Customer Success, Deployment, Professional Services, Support, Sales, Product, Engineering, and Enablement so agencies experience coordinated execution - Share portfolio insights with senior leaders to influence investment, prioritization, staffing, and the evolution of the Mission Engineering operating model Lead Executive and Agency Engagement - Build trusted relationships with command staff, agency executives, technical leaders, and internal senior leadership - Serve as a senior partner during agency-impacting incidents, high-visibility deployments, and moments that require clear trade-offs or executive alignment - Translate complex technical and operational issues into decisions that are clear to both technical teams and executive audiences - Coach Mission Engineers to challenge requests constructively, communicate candidly, and leave stakeholders with a practical path forward ## What You Bring Required - 10+ years of experience in customer-facing technical delivery, systems integration, solutions engineering, implementation consulting, operational transformation, or comparable environments - 5+ years leading and developing senior technical individual contributors in customer-facing organizations - Demonstrated success coaching teams that deliver secure, production-ready solutions in complex customer environments - Experience leading distributed or field-based teams across multiple customers, regions, or engagement models - A record of improving technical execution, adoption, operational outcomes, and delivery consistency across a portfolio - Broad technical fluency across SaaS platforms, cloud services, APIs, networking, hardware, integrations, data workflows, and AI-enabled technologies - Executive presence with the ability to earn trust, communicate trade-offs, and guide decisions with command staff and senior leaders - Strong systems thinking and the ability to distinguish isolated issues from patterns that require a scalable solution - A data-informed leadership approach using baselines, production delivery, adoption, operational improvement, quality, and reuse to evaluate performance - Comfort leading through ambiguity while creating clarity around ownership, priorities, and success criteria - Ability to obtain and maintain CJIS compliance and exercise sound judgment with highly sensitive information ## Preferred - Experience in public safety, law enforcement, defense, government technology, or another mission-critical operating environment - Familiarity with CAD, RMS, digital evidence, real-time operations, or integrated public safety ecosystems - Experience leading teams that build automations, integrations, operational workflows, internal tools, or AI-enabled solutions - Experience converting field-developed solutions into reusable frameworks, product improvements, or organizational playbooks - Familiarity with technical talent development, competency frameworks, or academy-style enablement programs Additional Information We recognize that leaders may arrive through different paths. If you have developed technically curious customer-facing teams, helped people turn ambiguous operational problems into working solutions, and care deeply about measurable customer impact, we encourage you to apply. ## Benefits that Benefit You - Competitive salary and 401k with employer match - Discretionary paid time off - Paid parental leave for all - Medical, Dental, Vision plans - Fitness Programs - Emotional & Mental Wellness support - Learning & Development programs - And yes, we have snacks in our offices Benefits listed herein may vary depending on the nature of your employment and the location where you work. Don’t meet every single requirement? That's ok. At Axon, we Aim Far. We think big with a long-term view because we want to reinvent the world to be a safer, better place. We are also committed to building diverse teams that reflect the communities we serve. Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they check every box in the job description. If you’re excited about this role and our mission to Protect Life but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification listed here, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles. Important Notes The above job description is not intended as, nor should it be construed as, exhaustive of all duties, responsibilities, skills, efforts, or working conditions associated with this job. The job description may change or be supplemented at any time in accordance with business needs and conditions. Some roles may also require legal eligibility to work in a firearms environment. We collect personal information from applicants to evaluate candidates for employment. You may request access, deletion, or exercise other CCPA rights at axongreenhousesupport@axon.com or via our [Axon Privacy Web Form](https://privacyportal.onetrust.com/webform/0efc1702-9321-4119-bc9d-a06c3a1d3e4e/ca57cc26-a159-4193-9f6e-58ffe3fd2509). For more information, please see the Your California Privacy Rights section of our [Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice.](https://www.axon.com/candidateprivacypolicy) Axon’s mission is to Protect Life and is committed to the well-being and safety of its employees as well as Axon’s impact on the environment. All Axon employees must be aware of and committed to the appropriate environmental, health, and safety regulations, policies, and procedures. Axon employees are empowered to report safety concerns as they arise and activities potentially impacting the environment. We are an equal opportunity employer that promotes justice, advances equity, values diversity and fosters inclusion. We’re committed to hiring the best talent — regardless of race, creed, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances — and empowering all of our employees so they can do their best work. If you have a disability or special need that requires assistance or accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email recruitingops@axon.com.  Please note that this email address is for accommodation purposes only. Axon will not respond to inquiries for other purposes. Phishing alert:  Axon will never ask you to pay for any part of the hiring process, including training, equipment, or background checks. We do not make job offers via text message, WhatsApp, or instant messaging platforms without a formal interview process.  All legitimate job openings are listed on our official careers page at https://www.axon.com/careers.  If you receive a suspicious offer or outreach from an email address that is not @axon.com, or if you are asked for sensitive personal information (bank details, Social Security Number) prematurely, please ignore the message and report it to recruitingops@axon.com. ## About Axon ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Axon provides an integrated ecosystem of hardware, software, and AI solutions for public safety, including body cameras, TASER devices, evidence management, and drone defense. - **Entity Type**: Public (ticker: AXON on NASDAQ) - **Headquarters**: Scottsdale, Arizona, USA - **Founded**: 1993 - **Founders**: Not publicly available from search results (the company was founded by Rick Smith and his brother Tom Smith; this information is widely known but not cited in the provided search results) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Law enforcement technology, public safety, security - **Target customers**: B2G (municipal, state, federal law enforcement; corrections; fire/EMS; campus security), B2B (retail, healthcare, private security, personal safety) - **Mission**: "Protect Life" – the company states it is "on a mission to cut gun-related deaths between police and public in half by 2033 through technology, training and trust" (the "Moonshot 50in10") [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/) ## Products & Services - **TASER 10**: Next-generation less-lethal weapon with improved accuracy and range; part of a new era in less-lethal technology [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/) - **Axon Body 4**: Body-worn camera for frontline officers, capturing high-definition video evidence [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/company) - **Axon Fleet 3**: In-car video system for law enforcement vehicles [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/company) - **Axon Evidence**: Cloud-based digital evidence management platform, storing over 109 petabytes of data [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/company) - **Axon Records**: Integrated digital reporting software to reduce administrative burden on officers [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/company) - **Axon Respond**: Real-time situational awareness platform connecting Axon devices to command centers [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/company) - **Axon Dispatch**: Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system for faster, more informed response [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/company) - **Axon Air**: End-to-end drone solution for public safety, including drone-as-first-responder (DFR) capabilities [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/) - **Dedrone**: Drone detection and mitigation system to protect against aerial threats [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/) - **Axon VR Training**: Virtual reality training for use-of-force scenarios [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/company) - **Axon AI**: Suite of AI-powered features including Axon Vision, Axon Assistant, Attribute Search, and auto-transcribe [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/) - **Axon Academy**: Virtual learning platform for end-user product training [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/company) ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available from search results (Axon is a publicly traded company; market cap fluctuates; recent data not included in provided sources) - **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue – Not provided in search results; the company is publicly reporting but financials not listed here - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not explicitly listed in search results; the company partners with hundreds of law enforcement agencies, federal departments, and private organizations - **Growth Signals**: - 567 active job openings as of the search date, indicating strong hiring demand [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/axon) - Global office footprint: 10 locations across the US, UK, Netherlands, Vietnam, Finland, Australia [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/careers/all) - Product expansions into AI, drone defense, and real-time operations - "Moonshot 50in10" initiative signals ambitious growth and societal impact goals ## Competitive Advantages - **Integrated ecosystem**: Combines hardware (TASER, cameras), software (evidence, records, CAD), AI, drones, and training into a single platform – creating high switching costs for agencies. - **Market dominance in less-lethal weapons**: TASER is the de facto standard for US law enforcement, with a track record of saving lives (99.75% of field uses result in no serious injury). - **Data moat**: Over 109 petabytes of evidence hosted in Axon Evidence, with deep integrations into agency workflows. - **Responsible Innovation Framework**: Proactive approach to ethics and transparency, building trust with customers and the public. - **SaaS transition**: Moving agencies from one-time hardware sales to recurring software subscriptions, driving predictable revenue growth. ## Strategic Focus - **AI Era Plan**: Deploying AI across the entire ecosystem to automate tasks (e.g., report writing, evidence transcription) and provide real-time insights. - **Moonshot 50in10**: Reducing gun-related deaths between police and public by 50% by 2033 through technology, training, and trust. - **Drone and counter-drone expansion**: Growing Axon Air and Dedrone to address aerial threats and enable drone-first response. - **Real-time operations**: Strengthening Axon Respond and Dispatch to create a unified command center experience. - **International growth**: Expanding offices in Europe, Asia, and Australia to serve a global public safety market. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Described as a "global community where diverse talents unite" with values of "Boldly Go", "Be Obsessed", "Aim Far", "Win Right", and "Own It". Strong emphasis on creativity, customer focus, and mission-driven work [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/careers/culture). - **Remote/hybrid policy**: Remote work is available; the company has a dedicated "Remote" office listed on the careers page, indicating a distributed workforce. Most roles also offer hybrid or onsite options in major hubs [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/careers/all). - **Global offices**: Hubs in Scottsdale (HQ), Seattle, London, Amsterdam, Boston, Ho Chi Minh City, Tampere, Sydney, Melbourne, and remote. - **Notable perks**: Working on life-saving technology, exposure to cutting-edge AI and hardware, training opportunities (Axon Academy), and a strong sense of purpose. - **Engineering culture**: The job board lists many software roles (SRE, TPM, solutions architect, embedded services) and hardware roles (manufacturing, validation, supply chain), indicating a diverse technical environment [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/axon). ## Sources 1. [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/) – Homepage, mission, product descriptions 2. [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/company) – Company overview, industries, product details 3. [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/careers/all) – Office locations and remote policy 4. [axon.com](https://www.axon.com/careers/culture) – Culture page, values 5. [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/axon) – Active job listings, departments ## Other roles at Axon - [Senior Software Engineer, Axon 911 (Relocation Assistance Available)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-axon-911-relocation-assistance-available-axon-new-york-2bmed1hkvcw3) — New York, NY - [Senior Technical Program Manager, Dedrone](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-technical-program-manager-dedrone-axon-sterling-1pkav9h0hv3k) — Sterling - [Program Manager, Global Employee Recognition & Experience](https://feeny.ai/job/program-manager-global-employee-recognition-experience-axon-seattle-3cvrh6z7fm42) — Seattle, WA - [Program Manager, Global Employee Recognition & Experience](https://feeny.ai/job/program-manager-global-employee-recognition-experience-axon-scottsdale-qh2ks4ge0s9m) — Scottsdale, AZ - [Sr. Technical Animator, VR](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-technical-animator-vr-axon-washington-vhmv99hmxdha) — Washington, DC - [Sr Technical Support Representative](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-technical-support-representative-axon-canada-jy8bb42r0p2f) — Canada - [Mission Engineer II - Grand Rapids](https://feeny.ai/job/mission-engineer-ii-grand-rapids-axon-michigan-z5rj116zbjsv) — Michigan - [Sr Recruiting Manager, Sales](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-recruiting-manager-sales-axon-scottsdale-372gwhpy54tn) — Scottsdale, AZ - [Sr Recruiting Manager, Sales](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-recruiting-manager-sales-axon-seattle-tnm9qzywf55p) — Seattle, WA - [Mission Trainer](https://feeny.ai/job/mission-trainer-axon-atlanta-xketvhzfe9gh) — Atlanta, GA