Forward Deployed Design Lead — Asset Performance Management

Avathon•Pleasanton, CA

7d•$130,000 - $155,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Forward Deployed Design Lead — APM is embedded directly at customer sites as the primary experience and implementation owner for Avathon's Asset Performance Management deployments. You live at the intersection of industrial workflow knowledge and experience design, responsible for configuring, implementing, and continuously improving how operators, reliability engineers, and maintenance teams actually use Avathon's platform day to day. You will spend Monday through Thursday on the plant floor, in control rooms, and in client working sessions — translating real operational workflows into configured APM solutions, designing the screens and interactions users will rely on in high-stakes environments, and driving adoption from go-live through steady-state operations. Fridays are typically remote for synthesis, documentation, and cross-team collaboration.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Industrial Design, or a related technical field
Experience working in or closely with industrial environments — power plants, manufacturing facilities, refineries, or mining operations — is highly valued
Willingness and ability to travel up to 80%
Based in Pleasanton, CA or Austin, TX
Must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future company sponsorship

Nice To Haves

5+ years of experience in enterprise software implementation, industrial systems delivery, or a UX/design role embedded in client-facing delivery — with hands-on configuration and deployment ownership
Demonstrated APM domain knowledge: predictive maintenance workflows, condition monitoring, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), FMEA, P-F interval, OEE, and asset criticality frameworks
Hands-on experience implementing or configuring enterprise asset management platforms: IBM Maximo, SAP EAM/PM, Oracle eAM, IFS, Infor EAM, Hexagon EAM, or similar
Familiarity with industrial data sources: historian systems (AVEVA PI, Aspen IP.21, Honeywell Uniformance), OPC-UA/MQTT, and IoT sensor integration in plant environments
Strong UX and design execution skills — able to produce annotated wireframes, dashboard layouts, and workflow diagrams that engineering teams can build directly from (Figma preferred)
Proven ability to facilitate discovery sessions and working meetings with mixed audiences of operators, engineers, and plant management — translating operational complexity into clear, actionable design decisions
Experience designing and delivering end-user training programs for enterprise software in industrial or operational environments — including hands-on floor training
Comfort with agile delivery rhythms: sprint planning, backlog grooming, and iterating rapidly based on user feedback in live client environments
Excellent written communication — able to produce configuration documentation, SOPs, and training guides that operators with varying technical backgrounds can follow independently

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end implementation of Avathon's APM platform at client sites — configuring asset hierarchies, alert thresholds, health scoring models, and work order integration workflows to match each customer's operational context
Lead functional configuration of APM modules: predictive maintenance rule sets, condition monitoring dashboards, asset criticality rankings, and maintenance strategy mappings aligned to client RCM frameworks
Set up and validate integrations between Avathon's platform and client CMMS/EAM systems (SAP PM, IBM Maximo, IFS, Infor EAM) — ensuring work orders, notifications, and asset master data flow accurately
Configure data pipelines from historian systems (OSIsoft PI, Aspen, Honeywell) and IoT/SCADA sources — validating signal quality, tag mappings, and anomaly detection thresholds in live operational environments
Conduct go-live readiness assessments — verifying system configuration, user access, data completeness, and integration health before each deployment milestone
Lead onsite discovery sessions — interviewing reliability engineers, maintenance planners, and operations supervisors to map as-is workflows and define the future-state experience on Avathon's platform
Produce implementation-grade design artifacts: annotated screen flows, configured dashboard layouts, alert routing rules, and role-based view specifications — directly actionable by the engineering team
Design and validate the end-user experience within Avathon's APM product: asset hierarchy navigation, alert triage consoles, trend analysis views, and work order dispatch screens — optimized for control room and field environments
Facilitate working sessions with client stakeholders to validate designs against real operational scenarios — iterating in real time based on operator feedback before configuration is finalized
Ensure designs account for the physical realities of industrial use: screen size constraints, shift-change handoffs, noisy environments, and the cognitive load of operators managing hundreds of assets simultaneously
Design and execute role-specific onboarding programs — building training plans, hands-on exercises, quick-reference guides, and SOPs tailored to how each user group (reliability engineer, maintenance planner, operations supervisor) will use Avathon daily
Conduct live training sessions and floor walk-throughs at client sites — coaching operators through the platform with patience, domain fluency, and credibility earned from understanding their workflows
Identify adoption barriers early — resistance to change, workflow mismatches, data trust issues — and develop targeted interventions in partnership with client champions and Avathon's FDE team
Track adoption metrics post-go-live (active users, feature utilization, alert response rates, work order completion) and use data to drive continuous improvement sprints with the client
Serve as the primary point of contact for end-user questions, configuration requests, and workflow adjustments during hypercare — escalating to engineering only when platform-level changes are required
Act as the day-to-day client contact for all design, configuration, and adoption activities — building trusted working relationships with operators, reliability leads, and plant management
Facilitate weekly client working sessions, design reviews, and sprint demos that keep stakeholders aligned, engaged, and confident in the deployment's progress
Maintain implementation documentation — configuration logs, integration specs, training materials, and acceptance test records — that serve as the client's operational handbook post go-live
Capture field learnings and configuration patterns from each engagement and contribute them to Avathon's delivery playbooks, accelerating future APM implementations
Identify opportunities to expand Avathon's footprint within accounts — additional asset classes, new user populations, or adjacent modules — and surface them to the engagement director