Senior Product Manager, Warehouse Execution Systems (WES) & Material Handling

Stord•Atlanta, GA

39d•Onsite

About The Position

Stord is seeking a Senior Product Manager to build and own their homegrown Warehouse Execution System (WES). This system acts as the orchestration layer between the Warehouse Management System (WMS) and the physical automation in distribution centers (e.g., goods-to-person, AS/RS, sortation, conveyor, robotics). The role involves defining real-time work release logic, task prioritization, and resource balancing. Additionally, the Product Manager will support Stord's Innovation Lab by running structured experiments on new material handling concepts and automation pilots. This is a senior role with director-level scope, potentially including future direct reports, requiring ownership of strategy, architecture, and stakeholder alignment across Product, Engineering, Operations, and DC leadership.

Requirements

5-7+ years in product management, with a substantial chunk of that in operationally complex, physical-world environments (warehouse/DC operations, supply chain systems, manufacturing execution, or robotics/automation).
Direct exposure to warehouse execution, WMS, WCS, or material handling automation concepts.
Demonstrated ability to zoom from system architecture to floor-level workflow and back.
A track record of owning ambiguous, build-it-yourself product scope.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Comfort with experimentation and structured ambiguity for the Innovation Lab portion.
Willingness to travel to DC sites.
Hands-on exposure to specific MHE/automation platforms (AutoStore, Knapp, Dematic, Honeywell Intelligrated/Momentum, HAI Robotics, Swisslog).

Nice To Haves

Experience building 0-to-1 internal/homegrown platforms (not just configuring vendor software).
Background in industrial engineering, operations research, or a discipline that makes 'labor and automation resource balancing' something you find genuinely interesting rather than exhausting.
Experience with real-time systems, event-driven architectures, or optimization/scheduling logic.

Responsibilities

Define and own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for Stord's homegrown WES, including work release logic, task/order prioritization, labor-and-automation resource balancing, and exception handling.
Own the build-vs-defer tradeoffs on WES scope.
Design how WES coordinates across heterogeneous automation types (goods-to-person, AS/RS, conveyor/sortation, and robotics).
Partner with Engineering and Controls/Automation stakeholders to define the contracts (data, timing, failure modes) between WES and physical equipment.
Build the operational logic for real-world failure conditions: equipment down, congestion spikes, mixed manual/automated backup flows.
Design and own the plan for building a plug-and-play integration layer.
Scope, run, and evaluate structured pilots on new material handling and automation concepts for the Innovation Lab.
Build the 'is this worth building' case (cost, throughput, labor impact, integration complexity) for Innovation Lab findings.
Bridge Innovation Lab findings back into the core WES roadmap.
Operate as the connective tissue between DC Operations, Engineering, Controls/Automation teams, and executive stakeholders.
Own metrics that tie WES performance to business outcomes: throughput, order cycle time, labor utilization, automation uptime, and exception rate.
Present roadmap, tradeoffs, and pilot outcomes to SLT.