Staff Technical Program Manager, Vehicle Program Management

Overview

Changing the world of luxury electrified mobility needs great people who like to have fun and achieve results as a team. As part of this journey, we are currently seeking a Staff Program Manager, Vehicle Programs with end-to-end vehicle development experience and demonstrated ability to excel in a fast-paced environment, drive cross-functional alignment across Engineering, Manufacturing, Design, and Finance and apply the appropriate level of urgency to advance our vehicle line program deliverables. This role will lead operational delivery across current and future model years, ensuring technical maturity, timing discipline, and financial stewardship. This person will be based at our Southfield, Michigan location.

Responsibilities

• Lead the cross-functional vehicle product development process from conceptual design phase to market introduction for existing or a new vehicle line 
• Translate product strategy into executable program plans, ensuring alignment with Manufacturing, Quality, Sales, Marketing, Powertrain, Engineering, Digital, Homologation and Finance to prioritize features, timing, resource allocation and investment decisions.
• Own and proactively manage the technical product description, evaluate design and engineering decisions with the Program Chief Engineer, ensuring feature maturity, integration readiness, and compliance with vehicle-level performance objectives.
• Be responsible for key vehicle financial and budgetary activities including the costed bill of materials, the program prototype budget, PMO budgets (headcount, expense, etc.) and resource allocation 
• Coordinate build configurations and review vehicle test plans with the cross-functional teams to ensure readiness for vehicle production and build volumes meet product development requirements  
• Proactively evaluate design and engineering decisions with the Program Chief Engineer, making sure they don’t cause any gap in correlation with the program schedule, budget and scope
• Track and manage program performance, using metrics on timing, cost, mass, feature readiness, and quality to drive transparent weekly reporting and executive reviews.
• Proactively identify and mitigate key program risks and possible deviations related to e.g. product architecture or any other required technical changes, ensuring proactive resolution of design, supplier, or manufacturing issues that could impact cost, quality, or launch timing
• Design and implement effective program management processes incl. configuration management, issue tracking and change management, embedding lessons learnt and best practices from initiation to completion.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in technical leadership, system engineering and/or technical program management 
• 10+ years of professional experience in the automotive industry 
• Experience leading a whole vehicle program from concept to launch
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and a proven ability to take ownership of technical product descriptions and schedules, consistently delivering projects on time  
• A proven track record of development and delivery of technical product  
• Wide experience in automotive hardware development, including integration and validation  
• Familiarity with systems engineering and project management principles  
• Experienced with project management tools like Jira, Confluence, and Smartsheets  
• Excellent communication skills at all organizational levels  
• Proficient in root-cause analysis and evaluation of engineering decisions  
• Ability to travel as needed 

Education 

• Bachelor's degree in an Engineering discipline or equivalent work experience. Master's degree preferred.