600+ Product & Project Management Jobs in San Diego, CA

Observed local government pay for the broad management occupation family is strong: BLS puts San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad at a $136,440 median annual wage, $156,320 mean, $91,080 at the 25th percentile, and $200,600 at the 75th percentile for 2025. BLS also reported a $75.15 mean hourly wage for management occupations in the metro in May 2025, versus $38.01 across all occupations locally. More current posting-based signals are directionally similar but narrower in scope: local advertised ranges for this category center on about $120k to $178k, while Levels.fyi estimates San Diego product manager median total compensation at $180,000 and senior product manager median total compensation at $223,408.

Full September 2026 market report

Advertised pay

Across the 547 openings that disclose pay, the advertised range midpoint runs $117,531 at the 25th percentile, $155,000 at the median and $200,000 at the 75th. These are advertised ranges, not earned pay.

Active openings as of October 17, 2026

Senior roles | Entry level | Remote | Posted this week

Live from the Callings.ai index of over 13 million postings, refreshed hourly and re-checked here nightly. Roles that close are dropped at the next refresh.

Showing 30 of 250+ openings.

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What our analysts see this month

Competitive market | next 3-6 months

This is a competitive market, not a dead one. San Diego's unemployment rate was 4.9% in August 2026, metro nonfarm employment was up 0.7005% year over year, and Professional and Business Services employment was essentially flat at +0.0379% year over year, so the backdrop is stable rather than expanding fast. Within the category, local demand is broad enough to matter—more than 550 postings across more than 300 companies over the last 90 days—but it skews senior and mostly on-site, which raises the bar for landing a role quickly. Statewide proxy data points to continued requisitions for this occupation family, with California active postings up 7.5% year over year, but that does not look like easy hiring because statewide employment for the category is still down 1.2% year over year.

Best positioned: The best odds right now belong to experienced product, program, and project leaders who can show hardware, defense, software, or cross-functional delivery results and are open to on-site or hybrid work at employers such as QUALCOMM, Inc., General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., Northrop Grumman, and Intuit, Inc.

Main caution: The main trap is assuming that a visible PM market means lots of entry-level or remote PM jobs; only about 5% of sampled openings were entry-level and about 5% were remote.

From the September 2026 market report

Who is hiring here

Counted across all 627 openings in this market. 10 of the employers below are hiring for more than one role right now.

1. QUALCOMM, Inc.: 49 open roles
2. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.: 45 open roles
3. Northrop Grumman Corp.: 25 open roles
4. Intuit, Inc.: 18 open roles
5. Booz Allen: 11 open roles
6. Monarch Quantum: 10 open roles
7. General Atomics: 8 open roles
8. WSP Global Inc.: 7 open roles
9. Arc Experience: 6 open roles
10. CVS Health Corporation: 6 open roles

Where the openings are

• San Diego: 513
• Poway: 50
• Tijuana: 8
• Chula Vista: 6
• Rancho Bernardo: 4
• El Cajon: 4
• Mountain View: 3
• Pasadena: 3

Work arrangement

on-site 439 (71%), hybrid 152 (25%), remote 24 (4%)

Where the demand is

The cleanest opportunities are not evenly spread across every PM flavor. In the local posting sample, the biggest industry slices inside this category were construction at about 30%, aviation and aerospace component manufacturing at about 20%, computer hardware development at about 15%, software development at about 10%, and defense and space manufacturing at about 10%. Because construction management belongs in a different specialist lane, the strongest true Management, Product & Project targets here are really the aerospace/defense, hardware, and software portions of the market rather than the headline total. The employer list reinforces that pattern. The most consistently active named hirers in the sample were QUALCOMM, Inc., General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., Northrop Grumman, and Intuit, Inc., and hiring was fragmented rather than dominated by one company. That is good news if you fit the local industrial mix, but it also means there is no single employer wave rescuing weak profiles; most wins will come from matching a specific domain, toolchain, or delivery context. There are some startup and biotech signals—Ollie raised $7.5 million and Primrose Bio announced growth capital—but neither announcement came with explicit hiring plans, so early-stage product openings should be treated as opportunistic rather than the main path.

• Defense and aerospace program delivery (high): Aviation and aerospace component manufacturing accounts for about 20% of the local sample and defense and space manufacturing about 10%, with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. and Northrop Grumman among the named active employers.
• Hardware and software product / TPM work (high): Computer hardware development represents about 15% of the sample and software development about 10%, with QUALCOMM, Inc. and Intuit, Inc. appearing among the most active named employers.
• PMO and execution-heavy roles inside larger employers (moderate): This segment is supported by the seniority mix more than by flashy title counts: about 45% of sampled roles were senior and about 15% were lead+, which favors candidates who can run operating cadence, portfolio visibility, and cross-functional delivery from day one.
• Startup AI product work (limited): Local startup and platform-development signals exist, including Ollie's $7.5 million seed round and Primrose Bio's growth-capital announcement, but neither source announced specific hiring plans.

Where to focus: If you want the highest-probability path in the next 90 days, focus on senior program, product, or delivery roles that translate well to aerospace-defense, hardware, or software employers and be willing to work on-site or hybrid.

Roles worth searching next

• Product Marketing Manager: This is a plausible pivot for PMs because the product role is splitting, with some talent moving closer to growth, lifecycle, monetization, and customer expansion.
• Business Analyst / Product Analyst: This is a strong bridge role because local demand includes project management and data analysis, and employers continue to seek business and analytical skills.
• Change Management / Transformation Analyst: This fits candidates whose strength is stakeholder alignment, operating cadence, and rollout planning rather than feature ownership; local postings emphasize stakeholder management and strategic planning, and national guidance highlights change management.
• Customer Success / Lifecycle Manager: Some PM work is moving closer to lifecycle and customer expansion, which makes this a reasonable adjacent path for candidates with strong user empathy and commercial fluency.

What postings ask for

• Project management (table_stakes | immediate): It is the single most common hard skill in the local sample at about 40% of postings, and it also appears on San Diego's list of most in-demand job skills. Who: Everyone in this category, especially entry-level and career-switching candidates who need a clearer professional identity.
• Risk management (differentiator | immediate): Risk management appears in about 25% of local postings, making it one of the clearest signals that employers want delivery leaders who can prevent surprises, not just track tasks. Who: Mid-career project, program, and delivery candidates.
• Stakeholder and budget management (differentiator | immediate): Stakeholder management and budget management each show up in about 20% of local postings, which tells you San Diego employers are buying coordination plus financial accountability together. Who: Candidates moving from analyst or coordinator work into full ownership roles.
• PMP (differentiator | near-term): PMP is the most commonly required certification in the local sample, even if it appears in only about 10% of postings. Who: Project and program candidates with the qualifying experience already in hand.
• Data analysis (premium | near-term): Data analysis is listed among San Diego's five most in-demand job skills, and employers nationally continue to seek business and analytical skills for cross-functional roles. Who: Product candidates, PMO analysts, and career switchers who need a more credible bridge into the field.
• AI and technical product fluency (premium | near-term): Product roles are splitting between deeply technical AI-adjacent work and growth-oriented work, and AI product postings cite technical acumen in foundation models, agentic AI, cloud AI platforms, and RAG as baseline qualifications. Who: Product managers, TPMs, and senior program candidates targeting software or platform teams.

Questions about this market

What do Management, Product & Project roles pay in San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA?

Observed local government pay for the broad management occupation family is strong: BLS puts San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad at a $136,440 median annual wage, $156,320 mean, $91,080 at the 25th percentile, and $200,600 at the 75th percentile for 2025. BLS also reported a $75.15 mean hourly wage for management occupations in the metro in May 2025, versus $38.01 across all occupations locally. More current posting-based signals are directionally similar but narrower in scope: local advertised ranges for this category center on about $120k to $178k, while Levels.fyi estimates San Diego product manager median total compensation at $180,000 and senior product manager median total compensation at $223,408. San Diego can pay very well for this category, especially once you clear the mid-career threshold, but the premium is buying real accountability rather than easy entry. The metro home price index was up +1.2% year over year in July 2026, so strong compensation does not automatically mean cheap living.

Where is demand for Management, Product & Project roles in San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA concentrated?

The cleanest opportunities are not evenly spread across every PM flavor. In the local posting sample, the biggest industry slices inside this category were construction at about 30%, aviation and aerospace component manufacturing at about 20%, computer hardware development at about 15%, software development at about 10%, and defense and space manufacturing at about 10%. Because construction management belongs in a different specialist lane, the strongest true Management, Product & Project targets here are really the aerospace/defense, hardware, and software portions of the market rather than the headline total. The employer list reinforces that pattern. The most consistently active named hirers in the sample were QUALCOMM, Inc., General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., Northrop Grumman, and Intuit, Inc., and hiring was fragmented rather than dominated by one company. That is good news if you fit the local industrial mix, but it also means there is no single employer wave rescuing weak profiles; most wins will come from matching a specific domain, toolchain, or delivery context. There are some startup and biotech signals—Ollie raised $7.5 million and Primrose Bio announced growth capital—but neither announcement came with explicit hiring plans, so early-stage product openings should be treated as opportunistic rather than the main path.

Which employers are hiring the most Management, Product & Project talent in San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA?

Recent postings show the most activity from QUALCOMM, Inc. (30 postings), General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (30 postings), Northrop Grumman (20 postings), Intuit, Inc. (15 postings). See the full market report for the complete employer landscape.

Can Management, Product & Project roles in San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA be done remotely?

Of recent postings, 5% are remote and 25% hybrid, with 70% on-site. Use the Remote filter above to see only remote openings.

How current are these listings?

Openings come from the Callings.ai live index of over 13 million jobs, refreshed hourly. This page searches postings from the last 30 days; run the search yourself to filter by anything else in plain language.

Browse California openings by job title

• Product Manager: 412 open roles statewide
• Project Manager: 407 open roles statewide
• Program Manager: 340 open roles statewide

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