louis lane.
Home The work 01
Discipline 01

Technical Program Leadership.

End-to-end ownership of complex engineering programs. From risk assessment and architecture to cross-team execution and delivery.

Program strategySystems engineeringCross-team execution
Case study 01 / Luminary

Outcome-Based Engineering Delivery at Luminary

Building a specialist delivery model around one accountable technical lead and a clearly defined customer outcome.

Conceptual illustration of an engineering delivery workflow.Conceptual illustration.

Business context

As customer engagements grew in complexity, individual forward-deployed engineers owned the customer relationship alongside CAD, simulation, model training, inference deployment, adoption, and expansion. Engagements often ran for three to four months or longer, and technical dependencies repeatedly interrupted progress.

The challenge

Structure delivery for growth: give customers a clear point of contact, bring the right technical specialists into each engagement, and deliver focused value before requirements drifted over a lengthy project.

My role

I worked with the field CTO to reshape the FDE delivery organization. I authored the core ethos of our outcome-based delivery approach and helped make staffing decisions for lead delivery engineers and individual projects. I also co-owned Product/Delivery integration and led matrixed teams of 2–4 engineers.

Contributions & implementation

  • Delivery Team Design: Helped establish matrixed delivery teams with application and AI/ML specialists, supported by a lead delivery engineer who owned the customer engagement.

  • Outcome-Based Planning: Wrote the core principles of a delivery approach centered on explicit customer outcomes and focused deliverables. The strategy was adopted across 12 customer accounts.

  • Staffing & Technical Ownership: Participated in staffing decisions for lead delivery engineers and project teams, matching technical capabilities to engagement needs while preserving one accountable customer-facing lead.

  • Product/Delivery Integration: Introduced expectations for Product Engineering to actively support customer engagements, bringing engineers closer to customer needs and strengthening alignment with commercial teams.

  • Execution Focus: Helped teams concentrate on delivering what the customer needed quickly, with specialist support to work through technical blockers.

The impact

Helped reduce minimum delivery time from approximately 12 weeks to 5 weeks, measured from project kickoff to the customer running inference and accepting model performance.

Customers received focused deliverables and value sooner, with a single technical point of contact backed by a team of specialists. Shorter engagements also reduced the opportunity for customer requirements to drift before delivery.

Case study 02 / Blue Origin

Blue Origin — Meteoroid & Debris Shielding

End-to-end MMOD risk management across lunar and orbital space programs.

Public Blue Origin programs I have made notable contributions to: Blue Transporter, Orbital Reef Space Station, Blue Moon MK1 Pathfinder, and Blue Moon MK2 Crew Lander.
Public Blue Origin programs I have made notable contributions to: Blue Transporter, Orbital Reef Space Station, Blue Moon MK1 Pathfinder, and Blue Moon MK2 Crew Lander.Sources: space.com, spaceref.com, Blue Origin

Business context

Meteoroids and orbital debris (MMOD) pose the greatest risk to spacecraft survivability and crew safety. At Blue Origin, I served as the lead subject-matter expert (SME) for MMOD, responsible for end-to-end risk management across multiple space programs including the Blue Moon lander and Orbital Reef.

The challenge

Integrate MMOD protection into spacecraft design and mission planning—balancing mass, cost, safety, and compliance with NASA standards—while minimizing orbital debris generation.

My role

Sole MMOD lead, providing technical guidance to senior leadership and government stakeholders. I owned all aspects of MMOD strategy and execution: risk assessment, shielding design, requirements definition, supplier integration, test campaigns, verification, and delivery.

Contributions & implementation

  • Tool Development: Built custom analysis libraries integrating NASA environment models with high-performance computing and AI/ML methods for rapid, probabilistic risk assessment.

  • Shielding & Architecture: Designed and validated spacecraft shielding architectures using finite element models, hyper-velocity test campaigns, and physics-informed ML models, achieving up to thousands of kilogram reductions through optimized shielding design and system architecture.

  • Program Integration: Drove MMOD considerations into supply chain and manufacturing, managing budget and schedule to ensure material and component choices met risk requirements without cost or timeline overruns.

  • Customer Engagement: Led MMOD sections of NASA design reviews, negotiated requirements, and authored compliance documentation securing program funding and flight approvals.

  • Enterprise Leadership: Served as single-threaded lead on MMOD across Blue Origin, advising executives and program managers, and coordinating across sub-systems, programs, and business units.

The impact

Delivered spacecraft protection systems that met stringent Internal and NASA MMOD requirements, enabled thousands of kilograms in mass savings, and de-risked multi-billion-dollar lunar and orbital programs.

Case study 03 / Cooper Union

President of Cooper Union Motorsports — Collegiate Formula SAE

Leading a 45-student team from a Manhattan basement to national competition.

Cooper Union FSAE CM600-S21.
Cooper Union FSAE CM600-S21.

Business context

Cooper Union Motorsports is a collegiate team that designs, builds and races an open-wheel formula-style race car from two stories underground in Manhattan.

The challenge

Lead a team of 45 engineering students to a top-10 position in the 2021 Formula SAE Michigan competition and transition the team to an electric vehicle competition, and navigate the complexities of partial lab access during the COVID pandemic.

My role

I was elected team President in 2021. As President, I had executive authority of the team’s tactical and strategic implementation.

Contributions & implementation

  • Planned and executed comprehensive fundraising strategy securing $80k in cash donations and $2M+ of in-kind support.

  • Acted as primary interface with school administration coordinating Dean’s office, finance, fundraising, and facilities teams.

  • Bred a hardware-rich design ethos and set a new team record for annual vehicle drive time exceeding the benchmark by 3x.

  • Wrote a lap-time optimization script for optimizing vehicle dynamics, leading to a team record in the Autocross event.

  • Mentored and taught ~20 undergraduate students in software and engineering design.

  • Implemented a holistic quality management system significantly reducing manufacturing non-conformance for student-made parts.

The impact

Successfully transitioned the team to the FSAE Electric Vehicle competition for 2022, and completed preliminary design of the EV race car 5 months in advance.

Ranked 11th out of 160 in the country in the FSAE design event.

Played a key role in getting my first job at Axiom Space!

Continue exploring / 02

AI & Simulation