Safety Engineering Program Manager (EPM), PACE

Apple•Cupertino, CA

About The Position

At Apple, the Product Analysis and Certification Engineering (PACE) organization is responsible for ensuring our products meet international Product Safety, Environmental, EMC, and Wireless standards and regulations, but also exceed those requirements to befit Apple's expectations. We operate at the intersection of engineering, compliance, and data; delivering the insights, testing, and certification workflows that Apple's product programs depend on. Our Safety EPM team is the connective tissue that keeps PACE operating effectively, driving system and module Safety validation and cross-functional coordination across a highly complex and fast-moving portfolio. PACE is seeking an experienced Engineering Program Manager to contribute across the full breadth of EPM functions. This role partners closely with engineering, legal, finance, supply chain, and cross-functional leadership to ensure that Safety system and module certification needs are delivered against tight timelines. This is a key role within a team of EPMs laser-focused on driving and tracking the full progression of Safety certifications and deliverables across multiple concurrent projects. The individual in this role will develop, refine, and uphold project schedules to ensure on-time completion of key milestones, maintaining a sharp command of the dependencies shaping any given critical path. A significant part of the role involves overseeing issue and priority management efforts across the EPM team, enabling data-driven decisions that directly impact design-for-safety and product integrity. Equally important is the ability to craft and deliver clear, compelling briefings and updates to senior engineering leadership and executives, enabling rapid decision-making within Apple's product development life cycle. The role demands close collaboration with cross-functional engineering and operations teams across production builds and Safety certification milestones, while also leading FMEA activities to proactively surface potential Safety risks and develop effective mitigations. Beyond day-to-day execution, this individual will manage key project management tools, tracking systems, and communications platforms, ensuring established processes are followed with rigor and continuously improved over time. They will review Safety test plans and process checklists to confirm thorough coverage of validations and certification requirements, and will contribute to supporting engineering budgets and resourcing needs across fiscal years. For a seasoned EPM looking to make a meaningful impact at scale, this is an outstanding opportunity to drive alignment, elevate execution standards, and help shape the future of a dynamic cross-functional organization.

Requirements

B.S. in Engineering or Technical degree.
3+ years of experience in program management, or a related function within a hardware product development environment.
Demonstrated product development life cycle knowledge and hands-on experience navigating product programs through development milestones.
Experience with budget management, resource planning, and program status reporting.
Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent work streams with competing priorities and tight timelines.
Analytical mindset with experience using data to inform decisions, improve processes, and drive accountability.
Demonstrated ability to build and maintain tools, dashboards, and systems that scale with organizational growth.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to distill complex operational topics into clear, actionable summaries.
Collaborative working style with a track record of building trust and credibility across functions and levels.

Nice To Haves

Masters degree or equivalent experience.
5+ years of experience in program management, or a related function within a hardware product development environment.
Possess strong technical intuition and understanding of basic engineering concepts with the ability to grasp complex design and process problems, while distilling them to their barest essences.
Demonstrated executive presence with comfort presenting to and influencing VP-level and above stakeholders.
Highly effective communicator, using both in spoken and written forms; sharp interpersonal skills who understand how to communicate across varied audiences in a climate of debate.
Cross-functional leadership experience, ability to drive alignment and outcomes without direct authority across engineering, operations, finance, and supply chain organizations.
Strong hunger factor and courageous spirit with a proclivity towards action and creative problem-solving.
Calm under fire, high resilience and interest in complex problem-solving within a challenging and fast-paced environment.
Track record of driving organizational adoption of new technologies, including change management and stakeholder education.
Familiarity with Apple's internal tools and systems for program tracking, resource management, and data analytics.
Experience in international and/or regional product safety standards, regulatory compliance, and/or government affairs is a big plus.
Ability to travel unrestricted, up to 10% of the time. Our work requires periodic travels to address anticipated (and unanticipated) project demands.

Responsibilities

Chairs Safety program reviews and top issue tracking sessions, generating polished executive presentations, briefings, and meeting summaries that drive clear action and accountability
Proactively surfaces program risks and issues, coordinating mitigations and providing recurring updates on program and product readiness
Co-owns project communications with engineering management, ensuring leadership maintains clear, consistent visibility across multiple ongoing programs and deliverables
Closes the loop on status updates, ensuring awareness is never an afterthought but a deliberate and ongoing practice
Identifies key program risks and action items, assigns owners, drives closure, and sets schedules for critical path items and Safety team deliverables with precision and follow-through
Oversee Safety validation activities with particular focus on OKShip and certification milestones, to include sample and test plan management
Manages schedule risks while actively identifying opportunities for gains, owning PM trackers such as Pulse, WRC, Project Disclosure Tracking, and OKShip Readiness updates
Develops plans and R&Rs to support resource decisions, partnering with management and EPS to ensure projects are appropriately staffed and vulnerabilities are clearly flagged before they become blockers
Drives clarity on methods, ownership, and deliverables for cross-functional stakeholders, leading efforts such as IEC 62368 alignment, regional standards conversions (e.g., GB 31241), 100% testing implementation, and magnetic field comparison testing
Engages cross-functional partners to align on requirements and ensures proper tracking, documentation, and follow-through from initiation to completion