Senior Director, PLM & Global Product Cost Manager

Fluence

4d•Remote

About The Position

Fluence is seeking a Senior Director to lead our Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Global Product Cost function within the product organization. This is a high-visibility leadership role accountable for the governance disciplines that determine whether our product portfolio can be delivered to corporate order intake, revenue, and margin targets at scale. You will lead the function that owns end-to-end product lifecycle management across markets, global product cost governance across the bill of materials, the rolling multi-quarter per-market product cost curves reviewed monthly with senior leadership, attainment of the company's standard product configuration order intake commitment, and the accuracy and currency of cost and configuration data flowing into commercial pricing and quoting systems. Market segment Product Managers define standard configurations and product direction; this role ensures those configurations are correctly maintained in internal systems and that the corporate commitments built on them are met. You will build and develop the team that operates these disciplines day-to-day, partner across Supply Chain, Procurement, Manufacturing, Engineering, and Commercial to drive cross-functional cost-down execution, and represent the function in executive reviews with senior leadership, the CFO, the CEO, and the Board as required.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Industrial Engineering, or related technical field; MBA or equivalent commercial training a plus.
12+ years of progressive experience spanning product management, product operations, cost engineering, supply chain leadership, or related disciplines in the battery energy storage industry or comparable complex hardware sectors (e.g., utility-scale energy, electric vehicles, industrial power electronics, aerospace, automotive Tier 1).
Direct experience leading or operating PLM and product cost functions for complex, configurable hardware systems at industrial scale.
Proven leadership building and developing cross-functional teams; experience hiring, structuring, and absorbing adjacent functions over time.
Strong financial fluency: comfortable owning and defending cost models, margin walks, estimate-at-completion (EAC) trajectory, and cost-down commitments in front of CFO, CEO, and Board audiences.
Working command of PLM methodologies and tooling (e.g., Windchill, Teamcenter, Arena, SAP PLM), bill of materials (BOM) governance practices, and engineering change control processes.
Familiarity with CPQ or product pricing systems (e.g., Tacton, Salesforce CPQ, Oracle CPQ) and the data flows that connect product configuration, costing, and customer-facing pricing.
Track record of driving cross-functional decisions across Supply Chain, Procurement, Manufacturing, Engineering, and Commercial without formal authority over those organizations.
Comfortable being the dissenting voice in front of executives; able to hold the line on standard configurations and cost commitments while recommending hard trade-offs.
Executive presence and structured communication; able to translate operational complexity into clear narratives, decisions, and asks suitable for C-suite and Board audiences.
Deep curiosity about how complex hardware products are designed, built, sold, manufactured, and serviced — and how decisions in any one function affect the others.
Ability to travel approximately 25% of the time, primarily to company sites, suppliers, and customer locations as required.

Nice To Haves

MBA or equivalent commercial training a plus.

Responsibilities

Lead the PLM and Global Product Cost function within the product organization, setting the strategy, policies, and operating cadence for product lifecycle management and cost governance across markets and product platforms.
Own the monthly review cadence on rolling multi-quarter per-market product cost curves with senior product and supply chain leadership; surface risks, dependencies, and cost reduction execution status across markets and commodities.
Own the integrity of the standard product configuration set within the company's internal systems; ensure configurations defined by market segment Product Managers are accurately maintained, time-phased, and current across pricing, quoting, and lifecycle tooling.
Own attainment of the corporate standard product configuration order intake commitment through the policies, governance forums, and escalation paths that drive compliance — without owning the configurations themselves, which sit with market segment Product Managers.
Own the change request governance process: chair the cross-functional forum that decides whether change requests become productized configurations or one-off treatments; balance commercial responsiveness against cost and complexity exposure.
Own configuration management and part numbering discipline across the product portfolio, including controlled item master practices, revision control, and where-used governance.
Own BOM phase governance across Engineering BOM (EBOM), Manufacturing BOM (MBOM), and Service BOM (SBOM); ensure consistency, traceability, and accurate data flow between phases as products move from design through manufacturing and into the field.
Own product data master discipline: the policies, ownership rules, and audit cadence that establish a single source of truth for product definition, configuration, and cost data across internal systems.
Interface with Engineering on engineering change notice (ECN) and engineering change order (ECO) execution, ensuring approved changes are reflected in PLM data, configurations, and downstream pricing and quoting systems on the correct effectivity.
Coordinate with Program Management on engineering change effectivity and cut-in implementation so that PLM data reflects the same effectivity dates and serial cut-ins committed to in execution.
Drive cross-functional cost-down execution in partnership with Supply Chain, Procurement, Manufacturing, and Engineering leadership; track the corporate cost reduction commitment by commodity owner; surface execution risks early and recommend course corrections.
Own the integrity of cost and configuration data within commercial pricing and quoting systems (CPQ) on a monthly cadence, ensuring the commercial organization quotes with validated, current cost and lead-time information across forward delivery windows.
Build and lead the PLM & Global Product Cost team; hire, develop, and structure the team to scale with portfolio complexity, including the future absorption of adjacent PLM systems leadership at the appropriate time.
Represent the function in executive reviews with senior product, supply chain, and finance leadership, the CFO, the CEO, and the Board as required; translate cost, lifecycle, and configuration data into clear executive narrative and decision recommendations.
Partner with Engineering and Component Product Management leadership on new product introduction (NPI) cost validation and component-level cost-down execution.
Partner with Commercial leadership on bid governance, deal desk, and pricing strategy decisions that affect cost commitments and margin trajectory.
Serve as the product organization's primary counterpart to Finance on cost validation, estimate-at-completion (EAC) alignment, margin walks, and cost-down value capture.
Operate as a credible dissenting voice when proposed configurations, customer commitments, or product direction materially conflict with corporate cost and margin targets; recommend cost-aligned alternatives and drive resolution at the executive level.