Staff Operations Program Manager

Lightmatter•Mountain View, CA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Lightmatter’s Supply Chain Operations team designs and executes global manufacturing networks for its photonic engines. The Staff Operations Program Manager serves as the primary operational program owner for supplier execution, Statement of Work governance, and master build planning across silicon foundries, OSATs, and Contract Manufacturers. The role bridges internal R&D, Packaging Engineering, Quality, and Commercial teams with external vendor leadership, driving NPI builds through to High-Volume Manufacturing. The successful candidate will take operational ownership of active Passage and/or Guide programs, maintaining multi-tier material availability tracking, Clear-To-Build readiness, vendor milestone execution, and cross-functional schedule alignment. The role owns the material development lifecycle from NPI through HVM and communicates program status, risks, and mitigation plans to executive leadership.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Business Management, Engineering, or a related field, complemented by relevant operational experience.
8+ years of progressive experience in Operations Program Management or Partner Operations within high-tech hardware, semiconductors, optical networking, or silicon photonics.
Proven experience directly managing external manufacturing partners, contract manufacturers, silicon foundries, or OSATs through complex NPI-to-HVM build cycles.
Advanced expertise constructing multi-tier master schedules, tracking material availability, and enforcing line-item Clear-To-Build matrices across multi-stage assembly flows.
Executive presence, influence, and assertiveness to drive internal engineering teams and external partner program managers to strict milestone dates.
Hands-on experience with BOM management, ECO routing, and revision control in PLM systems, as well as experience in ERP/MRP environments.
Capacity to comply with federally mandated U.S. export control requirements.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Industrial Engineering, or a technical discipline.
Direct experience managing operational supplier partnerships in electro-optical packaging, silicon photonics, high-speed optical transceivers, or AI compute hardware.
Deep understanding of multi-tier semiconductor transitions from wafer sort through advanced packaging to final module assembly.
Hands-on experience with BOM management, ECO routing, and revision control in PLM software such as Arena, Agile, Teamcenter, or similar.

Responsibilities

Own the complete material development lifecycle from NPI through HVM, serving as the primary operations counterpart to engineering and quality teams and coordinating with external vendors.
Drive operational execution for assigned electro-optical program lines by aligning customer and internal demand into master build plans across silicon foundries, OSATs, and Contract Manufacturers.
Build and maintain virtual line-item Clear-To-Build matrices across multi-tier suppliers.
Track component lead times and drive consigned material staging into OSAT and Contract Manufacturer facilities to support build execution.
Partner with engineering leads to draft, enforce, and track vendor Statements of Work.
Conduct weekly operational progress reviews, hold suppliers accountable to milestone deliverables, and drive vendor execution metrics.
Track and resolve critical-path dependencies affecting external manufacturing, including obtaining design freeze sign-offs, ECO cut-ins, and test scripts needed by vendor partners.
Maintain milestone risk logs, material readiness trackers, and build progress dashboards, and communicate status, critical-path risks, and mitigation plans to executive leadership.
Own PLM workflows across the product lifecycle, including creating and managing Bills of Materials and routing and approving Engineering Change Orders.