Program Manager, Materials Planning

Applied Materials • Austin, TX

2d • $88,000 - $121,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Applied Materials is looking for a Program Manager, Materials Planning to own material planning for products and parts with complex, changing, and customer specific demand. This is the work of making sure the right parts exist in the right quantity at the right time, in situations where the standard planning process does not give you the answer.
You will work across Engineering, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Operations, and Customer Support to validate demand, spot risk early, and drive the decisions that keep customers supported. It is a role for someone who is comfortable with incomplete information, goes and finds what they need, and moves without waiting to be told.
This is an individual contributor role with leadership responsibility across a small working group. It does not include direct people management.

Requirements

• Experience in one or more of: materials planning, supply chain planning, demand planning, manufacturing operations, product lifecycle management, engineering, or program management.
• Comfort with data analysis and reporting tools. Examples include ERP and MRP platforms such as SAP or Oracle, planning tools such as Kinaxis, reporting tools such as Tableau or Power BI, and advanced Excel.
• Exposure to demand forecasting, supply planning, inventory management, or lifecycle transitions.
• Experience leading cross functional work without formal authority.
• Bachelor's degree in supply chain, engineering, operations, business, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Practical expertise in materials or supply chain planning, with working knowledge of the engineering, manufacturing, and service functions that planning depends on.
• Understands how planning decisions affect customer commitments, inventory investment, and service performance, and how this role connects to the broader supply chain.
• Leads a small working group and acts as a resource to less experienced colleagues. Drives planning initiatives with manageable risk and resource requirements without direct reporting authority.
• Solves complex, ambiguous planning problems using data from multiple sources. Applies structured root cause methods and exercises judgment where the standard process gives no clear answer.
• Directly affects parts availability, customer uptime, and inventory exposure across their own team and partner teams. Works within broad guidelines rather than prescribed procedure.
• Explains difficult or sensitive supply and demand information to technical and non technical audiences, and builds consensus across functions that do not report to this role.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in semiconductor, electronics, or another complex manufacturing environment is helpful but not required.

Responsibilities

• Own material planning activities so parts availability stays aligned to customer demand.
• Validate demand changes with customers and business teams, and drive forecast updates when the signal is real.
• Balance supply, demand, inventory levels, and customer commitments, and adjust planning assumptions as conditions change.
• Work with large, complex datasets to surface demand shifts, planning risks, and inventory exposure before they become problems.
• Turn planning and operational data into recommendations that others can act on.
• Monitor inventory, demand signals, and supply to identify shortages, excess, and gaps early.
• Lead resolution of planning exceptions, where the situation is unique and the standard process does not apply.
• Run root cause investigations and put corrective and preventive actions in place.
• Manage competing priorities, make judgment calls with the data available, and escalate when escalation is genuinely warranted.
• Drive parts availability that supports installed base performance and customer uptime.
• Manage inventory exposure, including excess and obsolescence risk, and find alternative paths such as consumption opportunities, substitution, or rework.
• Support planning through product transitions and end of life, where demand patterns break from the norm.
• Partner with Engineering, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Operations, Customer Support, and business teams to align planning strategy.
• Coordinate with global teams across regions and time zones to execute and resolve issues.
• Communicate clearly to technical and non technical audiences, and influence outcomes without direct authority.
• Keep stakeholders current with clear status reporting.

Benefits

• supportive work culture that encourages you to learn, develop, and grow your career
• comprehensive benefits package
• participation in a bonus and a stock award program

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Associate degree