Episode 53: So, You Want to Become a DARPA Program Manager?

In this episode of the Voices from DARPA podcast, listeners will hear a “best hits” medley from program managers (PMs), who since 2016 have chronicled in the podcast their joy, sense of accomplishment, scientific stimulation, privilege to influence entire fields of research and development, sense of mission as they further the cause of national defense and security, fun, and, in short, the overall awesomeness of their jobs. Every program manager arrives at DARPA with an expiration date on their badges. It’s a short-term deal that constantly brings in new blood and is routinely cited as part of DARPA’s “special sauce.” Those who become PMs know their jobs likely will end three to five years after they start. Yet so many of them say there is no better job and that they wouldn’t have it any other way. Their collective message is that being a DARPA PM can be a dream job for just about any scientist or engineer, whether they are only beginning to rev up their careers; already making a name for their themselves in an academic, start-up, industry, or government setting; or in search of a second-career to apply the experience and wisdom they have accrued over previous decades of work. At the end of the podcast, DARPA director and former program manager Stefanie Tompkins encapsulates the collective message of the many DARPA voices in this episode: “The program manager is the center of DARPA. The PMs, each and every one of them, has a chance to change the world.”