SW Product Planning & Management

Job Summary:

This entry level/early career professional, applied technology position creates software that is sold as an integral part of Cummins’ products. People in these positions have involvement in identification and understanding of stakeholder requirements and developing specifications, and responsibility for design, implementation, testing and/or release of software that controls the operation of Cummins’ products in a variety of customer applications.

Key Responsibilities:

Investigates product software problems, understands causal mechanisms, recommends appropriate action, owns problem resolution, and documents results. Applies and supports the improvement of product software development processes and tools. Processes include coding, compiling and test. Tools include code editors, integration tools, static analysis tools, compilers and hardware in the loop test tools. Details specific to this role may be found at the end of this document. Obtains input and collaborates with product and software development teams and delivers verified software features, components, builds to product teams. Uses systems knowledge and expertise to make decisions in the areas of software requirements, architecture, design, and test that impact the quality and performance of software builds, product lines (platforms) and management of cross-BU integration and coordination. Owns problem resolution for moderately complex components, products, systems, subsystems or services with technical complexity and ambiguity increasing as experience is gained in the role. Responsibile for interacting and collaborating with cross-functional teams. Provides independent execution of established work processes and systems, while still developing technology or product knowledge; engages with the improvement of systems and processes. Involves minimal direct management of people, but could involve the coordination and direction of work amongst technicians and/or temporary student employees. Contributes effectively toward team goals, exhibits influence within a work group and continues to develop proficiency in the competency areas critical to success in the role.

1. Software Financial Planning & Budget Management

• Lead annual and quarterly software financial planning activities, including labor and non-labor cost forecasting, budget tracking, and variance analysis.
• Partner with project leaders, finance teams, and stakeholders to ensure alignment between funding, resource demand, and delivery commitments.
• Monitor project financial performance and proactively identify funding gaps, cost risks, and optimization opportunities.

2. Resource Capacity Planning & Workforce Management

• Drive software organization capacity planning by balancing project demand, available resources, and strategic priorities.
• Develop and maintain resource allocation models, headcount plans, and staffing forecasts across multiple software programs.
• Collaborate with delivery managers to optimize resource utilization and support critical project execution.

3. Portfolio Planning & Governance

• Establish and maintain portfolio-level visibility of software programs, including budget status, resource allocation, project health, and delivery milestones.
• Support portfolio prioritization and investment decision-making through data-driven analysis and reporting.
• Facilitate governance reviews and management reporting for leadership teams.

4. Business Operations & Performance Management

• Define, track, and improve key business metrics related to software delivery efficiency, resource utilization, budget performance, and organizational productivity.
• Develop dashboards and management reports to provide actionable insights for leadership decision-making.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance planning accuracy and operational effectiveness.

5. Cross-functional Stakeholder Management

• Act as the primary interface between Software Delivery, Finance, HR, Procurement, and Business Units regarding planning and resource-related activities.
• Coordinate funding approvals, purchase order planning, contractor management, and workforce planning processes.
• Ensure timely communication and alignment across global and regional stakeholders.

6. Strategic Planning & Organizational Development

• Support annual operating plan (AOP) development, long-range planning, and strategic workforce planning.
• Analyze future business demand and capability requirements to support sustainable organizational growth.
• Recommend organizational and investment strategies based on business priorities and capacity analysis.

Competencies:
Product Failure Mode Avoidance - Mitigates potential product failure modes, by identifying interfaces, functions, functional requirements, interactions, control factors, noise factors, and prioritized potential failure modes and potential failure causes for the system of interest to effectively and efficiently improve the reliability of Cummins’ products.

Product Function Modeling, Simulation and Analysis - Impacts product design decisions through the utilization and/or interpretation of computational tools and methods that predict the capability of a product's function relative to its system, sub-system and/or component level requirements.

Product Platform Planning and Architecting - Creates and develops a holistic product platform including key architectural feature and function variants needed to align with market level product plans of future target markets; generates alternative architectures traceable to the requirements and performs trade-off analysis in collaboration with life-cycle stakeholders to ensure a balanced and optimum platform; communicates and maintains traceable information and plans executed by product development teams.

Product Software Design and Construction - Constructs product software using industry best practices and robust software engineering principles; verifies software updates to ensure quality products.

Product Verification and Validation Management - Develops product systems validation plans from a variety of inputs to identify failure modes, while managing product risk and relative priority; negotiates product requirements against capability to guide project scope; evaluates analytical, simulation and physical test results to verify product capability and validate requirements; assesses legacy versus proposed system solution capabilities and produces recommendations with technical documentation to support product decisions.

System Requirements Engineering  - Uses appropriate methods and tools to translate stakeholder needs into verifiable requirements to which designs are developed; establishes acceptance criteria for the system of interest through analysis, allocation and negotiation; tracks the status of requirements throughout the system lifecycle; assesses the impact of changes to system requirements on project scope, schedule, and resources; creates and maintains information linkages to related artifacts.

Systems Thinking - Defines the system of interest by drawing the boundaries, identifying its context within its environment, its interfaces, and that it has a lifecycle to aid in planning the problem statement, scope and deliverables ; analyzes linkages and interactions between elements that comprise the system of interest by using appropriate methods, models and integration of outcomes to understand the system, predict its behavior and devise modifications to it in order to produce the desired effects.

Collaborates - Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives.

Communicates effectively - Developing and delivering multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences.

Decision quality - Making good and timely decisions that keep the organization moving forward.

Drives results - Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances.

Self-development - Actively seeking new ways to grow and be challenged using both formal and informal development channels.

Values differences - Recognizing the value that different perspectives and cultures bring to an organization.

Applies Principles of Statistical Methods - Analyzes technical data using descriptive statistics, probability distributions, graphical analysis, and statistical inference (population and sample, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing); models relationships between response and independent variables using analysis of variance, regression, and design of experiments to make rigorous, data-based decisions.

Cross-Functional Design Integration - Translates the value package requirements that include the voices of many stakeholders into virtual designs, and communicates the capability of the design through an approved cross-functional design review.

Product Problem Solving - Solves product problems using a process that protects the customer; determines the assignable cause; implements robust, data-based solutions; and identifies the systemic root causes and recommended actions to prevent problem reoccurrence.

Technical Documentation - Documents information based on knowledge gained as part of technical function activities; communicates to stakeholders with the goal of enabling improved technical productivity and effective knowledge transfer to others who were not originally part of the initial learning.

Product Development Execution, Monitoring and Control - Plans, schedules, coordinates and executes the activities involved in developing a product to a respectively aligned hierarchy of requirements and technical profiles; monitors and communicates across functional boundaries to meet project resource and quality expectations; ensures product capability meets or exceeds expectations and takes mitigating actions when project risks are higher than expected; understands the full product life cycle process and stakeholders.

Education, Licenses, Certifications:
College, university, or equivalent Bachelor's degree in Engineering or appropriate STEM field is required.

Post-graduate (Master's) degree relevant to this discipline area may be required for select roles.

This position may require licensing for compliance with export controls or sanctions regulations.

Experience:
Entry level/Early career professional. Preferred candidates would have relevant experience working in either a temporary student employment environment (intern, co-op, or other extracurricular team activities) or as an early career professional in a relevant technical discipline area. Knowledge of MS Office tools is also preferred