Senior Technical Program Manager

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract. 

As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations. 

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.

• Leadership - 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.

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

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Rivian is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at [email protected].

Candidate Data Privacy

Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions. 

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.