Sr. Technical Program Manager - Materials & Joining

Rivian • Tustin, CA

56d • Onsite

About The Position

The Technical Program Manager – Materials & Joining plays a critical role in driving Rivian’s technology & strategy to support Standard Components and Materials Engineering within Rivian’s Quality & Reliability department. You will partner with cross-functional teams across Product Development, Manufacturing & Process Engineering, Procurement & Supply Chain, and Supplier Quality. Throughout the product lifecycle you will craft crossfunctional solutions that directly support our production schedule, improve efficiency, improve assembly quality, and enable research and development of advanced component offerings. This role is located at our Tustin, CA facility and reports into Rivian’s Materials Engineering team.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Robotics or a related field.
• 3-5 years experience in product design, technical program management, PLM, engineering systems, or a related field, preferably within the automotive or high-tech industry.
• A track record of successfully delivering cross-functional projects on schedule. Experience is preferred within the automotive domain or to have demonstrated outstanding skills from an adjacent and relevant industry.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to influence, inspire and build a culture that comes together to over-deliver.
• Understanding of engineering theory, manufacturing techniques and principles of operation of mechanical systems and material requirements.
• Able to work efficiently and demonstrate composure under pressure.

Nice To Haves

• Design Release Experience (preferred)
• Experience with DFMEA, PFMEA, and reliability processes in product development. (preferred)
• Experience leading small teams of technical or program professionals
• Existing pedigree and success in customer/partner environment.
• An ability to challenge existing assumptions, concepts, and beliefs to develop new methods.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Technical Program Management effort for joints (including welds, adhesive, and mechanical fasteners), raw material, and finished goods products, in support of all Rivian programs. Act as a bridge between technical teams and business stakeholders, ensuring clear communication and alignment of program objectives. Provide regular updates to FAME leadership on program status, risks, and mitigation strategies.
• Engineering Critical Path – ensuring all Materials Engineering deliverables have timelines to manage critical path, and that the cadence of fasteners & materials development is being driven based on an aligned timeline, and with actively derisking the critical path in mind.
• Risk Management – working with the Fasteners and Materials focals to identify risks to programs and production, mitigation plans, and escalation before risks are realized. Communicating with vehicle-level and Program teams and their TPMs, and ensuring alignment on the route forward. This is constantly evolving throughout the entire program, and dependent on the risks at hand.
• Issue Management – ensuring emergent issues are identified and resolved effectively throughout the program and issues are burned down before moving to more complex phases of the program.
• Scope Management – understanding and communicating Vehicle Line and Program goals to the FAME team, and decomposing them into a technical roadmap.
• Change Management – align on change management content, and that the changes are necessary, and then ensure high quality change execution when change is agreed upon.
• Targets Management – iterate with partner/using teams and vehicle lines on fastener/material budget targets, BOM cost, mass, unique part count (commonization), and then ensure those teams are achieving targets, help resolve issues, escalate roadblocks, and spot icebergs that would prevent targets from being achieved.
• Engineering - work with Materials Engineering focals to ensure short-term and longer-term projects are kept on budget and on schedule. Support emergent efforts, especially ‘line down’/part shortages: coordinate and facilitate engagement of all parties to provide rapid direction for a viable solution, ensuring accountability and ownership across stakeholders.
• Data Integrity- contribute to the integration of material and joint test and simulation data into a robust data warehouse driving efficient data centric engineering decision making.
• Supply Chain and Procurement - work side by side with the Supply Chain and Fasteners Procurement teams to ensure projects are consistently followed and managed with respect to timelines, integration, stakeholders management and readiness. Key areas of note include re-sourcing initiatives and new program pilot builds and launches.
• Bill of Materials Accuracy - support Standard Components & Materials on new part number releases/where used/QPVs. Understand incoming changes and enforce the need to minimize the introduction of new fasteners to program BOMs. Support NPI efforts to introduce new fasteners.
• Technical Integration at all levels – act as the glue between the teams to ensure there is cross-collaboration, trade offs being made across the teams, and issues escalated. Be a communications bridge between all partners and teams to ensure Right First Time quality of our parts, our materials, and the vehicle assemblies they enable.

Benefits

• Rivian provides robust medical/Rx, dental and vision insurance packages for full-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26. Coverage is effective on the first day of employment, and Rivian covers most of the premiums.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees