Product Owner, Distributed Manufacturing Platform
About The Position
Pacific Impact Zone (PIZ) is seeking a Product Owner for its distributed manufacturing orchestration platform. This system is designed to solve a critical logistics problem in modern defense: sustaining operations when centralized supply chains are contested, degraded, or unavailable. The role involves working directly with PIZ’s development team, translating operational requirements into platform decisions, guiding the build, and ensuring the work remains grounded in the actual problem it aims to solve. This is a hands-on role focused on turning a complex operational concept into a functioning system, rather than a high-level strategy or architecture position. The ideal candidate has experience with logistics failures in contested environments and believes in distributed manufacturing as a solution, aiming to build the platform that makes it operationally viable. This role is not for a traditional manufacturing supply chain expert, a systems engineer focused on architecture, or an industrial engineer optimizing factory flow.
Requirements
- BS in Engineering or equivalent; former military enlisted personnel with directly related experience are also eligible
- Direct experience with DoD logistics, sustainment, or supply chain operations — particularly in contexts where availability, distribution, or access was a genuine constraint (required)
- Demonstrated ability to own a complex workstream end-to-end — not just contribute to it — with accountability for outcomes in ambiguous, fast-moving conditions
- Systems thinking at the operational level: comfortable holding a multi-node, multi-variable problem in your head and making decisions that account for the whole, not just the part in front of you
- Enough technical fluency to work credibly with a software development team — you don’t need to write code, but you need to understand what you’re asking for and why it’s hard
- Familiarity with manufacturing or production concepts at a systems level — how distributed production works, what breaks it, and how orchestration across nodes differs from centralized manufacturing
- Motivated by the operational problem, not just the platform — you care about what this system does for warfighters in a degraded environment, not just whether it’s well-built
- Comfortable at the frontier of an unsolved problem; able to make forward progress without a complete picture
- Able to hold strategic intent and tactical execution at the same time — you don’t lose the thread of the operational concept when you’re deep in sprint planning
- Direct communicator; comfortable pushing back on the development team, mission partners, and leadership when the work is drifting from the problem
- Willing to build structure, document decisions, and create transferable knowledge — not just execute
Nice To Haves
- Awareness of biomanufacturing as a capability domain — what it is, where it fits in a distributed production model, and what makes it operationally relevant — is a plus
Responsibilities
- Serve as the product owner for PIZ’s distributed manufacturing orchestration platform — owning the requirements backlog, shaping build priorities, and making day-to-day decisions that keep development grounded in operational reality
- Work directly and continuously with the development team; translate operational concepts and mission partner needs into clear, buildable requirements
- Hold the line between what the platform needs to do and what is technically feasible — navigating tradeoffs without losing sight of the operational problem being solved
- Develop and maintain a coherent operational concept for distributed manufacturing in a contested environment — from point-of-need identification through distributed production, fulfillment, and quality assurance
- Integrate biomanufacturing into the broader distributed manufacturing flow; understand where it fits, what it enables, and what constraints it introduces — without needing to be a biomanufacturing expert
- Engage with mission partners to pressure-test the concept against real operational requirements and refine accordingly
- See the full orchestration problem — across manufacturing nodes, supply inputs, logistics constraints, and operational tempo — and keep that system view intact as the platform gets built piece by piece
- Identify where the platform concept has gaps, where assumptions are untested, and where the build is drifting from the operational problem; surface these early and drive resolution
- Contribute to PIZ’s broader capability around contested logistics — documenting what you learn, building transferable knowledge, and helping PIZ develop durable expertise in this domain
Benefits
- Health/Dental/Vision insurance coverage
- Short-Term and Long-Term Disability
- Retirement savings plan with employer match
- Paid time off and holidays
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
Education Level
Associate degree
