Manager, Specification & PLM Systems

Morgan Street • Seattle, WA

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Manager, Specification & PLM Systems is part of the Commercial Technology & Innovation team and reports to the Senior IT Category Services Director. This role owns the long-term evolution and day-to-day stewardship of the Centric PLM and Specright specification data management platforms, keeping them modern, scalable, reliable, and aligned with the needs of Packaging, Category, and GMS organizations.

The position combines strategic product ownership with hands-on platform administration. It defines platform vision, roadmaps, investment priorities, governance, and delivery backlogs; translates business processes into requirements and platform capabilities; and drives adoption of vendor innovations while limiting unnecessary customization. The role also administers configuration, workflows, permissions, environments, releases, data governance, and escalated support.

The manager establishes reliable product and specification data foundations, integration strategies, operating standards, and vendor partnerships. The role leads and develops the business applications team, coordinates resources and budgets, and works with business and technical stakeholders to improve efficiency, compliance, data quality, and the value realized from PLM and SDM investments.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience configuring, supporting, and evolving enterprise SaaS business applications, including PLM or SDM platforms.
• Hands-on experience with Centric PLM, Specright, or a comparable platform such as PTC Windchill, Siemens Teamcenter, Oracle Agile PLM, or Bamboo Rose.
• Demonstrated enterprise platform administration experience, including translating business processes into configuration, workflows, business rules, user and role administration, and environment management.
• Experience owning escalated tier-2 or tier-3 application support, ticket triage, root-cause analysis, and vendor escalation.
• Experience planning and executing platform upgrades, patches, and regression testing with minimal business disruption.
• Experience owning a SaaS platform roadmap, including vendor release adoption, capability expansion, and renewal or replacement decisions.
• Ability to set platform strategy and investment priorities with senior stakeholders while also configuring, testing, and troubleshooting systems hands-on.
• Strong understanding of product development and new product development processes, including bills of materials, approval workflows, and product- and packaging-level specification data.
• Working knowledge of PLM and SDM distinctions and the trade-offs between product-first templated data structures and flexible spec-first models.
• Experience with packaging and sustainability specification data and associated reporting or compliance requirements.
• Experience collecting, documenting, and maintaining business requirement traceability across releases and updates.
• Experience partnering with business owners to map workflows and identify efficiency opportunities.
• Vendor management experience, including SOW and SLA oversight, escalation, and recurring business reviews in partnership with a VMO or Procurement.
• Experience managing vendor release cycles, including impact assessment, regression testing, validation, and production support.
• Hands-on experience delivering and supporting integrations using APIs, middleware or iPaaS, EDI, or file-based feeds between PLM or specification systems and downstream ERP, PIM, DAM, sourcing, and supplier platforms.
• Experience establishing product or specification data systems of record, including data governance, versioning, master data alignment, and cross-system reconciliation.
• Hands-on experience owning an agile product backlog alongside a Scrum Master, including user stories, acceptance criteria, story pointing, sprint planning, and velocity tracking.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication, and facilitation skills across business and technical audiences.
• Self-directed learning skills and ability to stay current on vendor releases and industry innovation.
• Strong organizational and problem-solving skills and ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Working knowledge of Agile, Waterfall, and Hybrid delivery methodologies.
• Proficiency with Jira, Azure DevOps, ServiceNow, Smartsheet, and Microsoft 365.
• Experience establishing application governance, change control, and data integrity standards.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach, and mentor analysts and support staff.

Nice To Haves

• Centric PLM administration or implementation certification.
• Experience in consumer products, retail, apparel, food service, or promotional merchandise supply chains.
• Experience leading a global PLM or specification management rollout across multiple regions and business units.
• Experience building master data management, reporting, or analytics capabilities for product and specification data.

Responsibilities

• Own the PLM and SDM SaaS platforms throughout their lifecycle, from selection and onboarding through capability expansion, renewal, and replacement.
• Define and execute multi-year product visions, roadmaps, and investment strategies for Centric PLM, Specright SDM, and related business applications.
• Balance business outcomes, platform sustainability, technical debt, and total cost of ownership.
• Lead application portfolio operations, release planning, support, and continuous platform improvement.
• Partner with Packaging, Category, and GMS stakeholders to understand processes, define requirements, prioritize backlogs, and deliver capabilities.
• Translate business requirements into configurations and solution designs, validating outcomes through prototyping, testing, and iterative delivery.
• Establish functional ownership across PLM and SDM processes, data domains, and capabilities while minimizing overlap.
• Govern specification, packaging, material, and product data standards, templates, workflows, ownership, version control, and approvals.
• Maintain specification and product data systems of record and ensure consistency, traceability, synchronization, and downstream reconciliation.
• Own the integration strategy and roadmap linking PLM and SDM with ERP, SIM, DataSphere, sourcing, supplier, manufacturing, quality, and compliance systems.
• Oversee integration design, testing, monitoring, and data reconciliation.
• Assess vendor releases, plan upgrades, validate business impact, and drive adoption of useful capabilities.
• Monitor platform and market developments to identify capability, consolidation, process improvement, and vendor rationalization opportunities.
• Establish platform governance, service expectations, support metrics, security controls, operational processes, and business continuity practices.
• Manage vendor, implementation partner, and managed service provider relationships, ensuring contractual commitments, service levels, quality, and delivery outcomes.
• Administer Centric PLM and Specright configuration, workflows, attributes, templates, libraries, and business rules.
• Manage users, roles, groups, permissions, access reviews, and segregation of duties.
• Manage environments, sandboxes, configuration migration, upgrades, patches, and regression testing.
• Own tier-1 and tier-2 application support, triage tickets, diagnose root causes, and escalate issues to vendors with reproduction details.
• Maintain system and specification master data, including attribute libraries, templates, seasons, BOM structures, and reference data quality.
• Administer licenses, seats, and settings; monitor utilization and adjust provisioning as needed.
• Document configuration decisions, administrative procedures, and runbooks; train super users and business administrators.
• Establish standards, templates, tools, and governance practices for business application delivery and change control.
• Standardize demand intake, prioritization, release reporting, RAID management, and platform health metrics.
• Support adoption and effective use of PLM and specification tools, ensuring reporting accuracy and data integrity.
• Own and groom the product backlog, writing user stories and acceptance criteria in partnership with the Scrum Master and/or Business Analyst.
• Partner on agile ceremonies, story pointing, sprint capacity, velocity forecasting, and continuous improvement.
• Partner with the Vendor Management Office (VMO) on vendor delivery, business reviews, agreements, roadmaps, support obligations, and renewals.
• Work with Procurement to optimize licensing, subscriptions, support renewals, cost, and utilization.
• Lead, coach, and develop the business applications team; manage capacity planning and resource allocation.
• Partner with Finance, HR, and technology leaders on budgets, forecasts, and application portfolio total cost of ownership.
• Promote operational discipline, documentation standards, and knowledge management across the team.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, and other benefits.
• Paid parental and medical leave programs.
• 401(k) with a company match component and profit sharing.
• 15 days of paid time off plus company holidays.
• Hybrid work model.
• Tuition reimbursement and student loan repayment assistance.
• Inclusive employee resource groups.
• Compensation, recognition, learning and development, corporate culture, corporate citizenship, and work-life balance programs.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager