Technical Program Manager - Hardware & Manufacturing

Pronto•San Francisco, CA

2d•$122,000 - $151,000•Onsite

About The Position

Pronto AI is a global leader in commercializing autonomous vehicle (AV) technology, deploying Autonomous Haulage Systems (AHS) that automate operations in mines, quarries, and construction sites worldwide. While much of the industry remains in R&D, we deliver real, production-ready autonomy that is already operating in the field. We are on a mission to make mining operations safer, smarter, and more efficient through cutting-edge technology, and we are building toward becoming the world’s first profitable AV technology company. The Hardware & Manufacturing TPM owns the queue where onsite hardware and QC issues meet engineering — the seam between the build floor (OEM production lines, upfit partners, kitting) and the teams that own the design. This role triages incoming hardware issues across active builds, on-road transport truck kitting and off-road mining kit installs alike, decides what escalates and to whom, and owns inventory issues before they hold up a build. Today those reports land in a shared channel with no consistent triage, so a cosmetic issue and a line-stopping one compete for attention in whatever order they arrive. This role replaces that with a single owned queue.

Requirements

Hands-on hardware, manufacturing, or field-ops background — has worked the floor, not just reviewed reports about it.
Comfortable as the triage point between site or build partners and engineering: thick skin, high urgency, able to make a prioritization call with incomplete information.
Has stood up an intake or QC process from scratch, not just operated one someone else built.
Track record working with vehicle or heavy-equipment hardware (wiring harnesses, sensor/compute mounting, electromechanical assemblies).

Nice To Haves

Experience with on-road commercial vehicle (Class 8 truck) upfit, kitting, or OEM production-line environments.
Experience with off-road or heavy industrial equipment (mining, construction) hardware builds.
Familiarity with supplier and inventory escalation, and part-revision control.
Experience with Linear or a similar ticketing tool for tracking build issues to closure.

Responsibilities

Own a single intake queue for hardware and QC issues reported from build lines and field sites, replacing today's mix of ad hoc Slack messages and DMs.
Triage every incoming issue by severity and impact — distinguishing a line-stopping defect from a cosmetic one — rather than working items in the order they arrive.
Set and hold response-time expectations for build partners and plant contacts.
Prioritize the engineering dev queue against what's actually blocking a build or a site, not against whichever issue was reported most recently.
Identify when several individual tickets are the same underlying defect, and roll them into one engineering fix rather than let them get worked separately.
Own escalation for onsite QC failures and inventory shortages — the shared point between the field/build floor and engineering, supply chain, and manufacturing.
Track recurring hardware defects (wrong part revisions, bracket or jig issues, harness defects) back to their root cause, and escalate to the owning team: engineering, supplier, or the line itself.
Escalate hardware issues affecting truck builds across both on-road transport upfit lines and off-road mining kit installs.