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Zipline is the world's largest autonomous drone delivery service, operating on four continents and completing millions of deliveries of blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products. The company has flown over 140 million commercial autonomous miles and is redefining global logistics and supply chain efficiency.
As PLM & Configuration Manager, you will define and own the configuration management framework that ensures product integrity from early engineering development through mass production and field operations. You will serve as the authoritative voice on BOM (Bill of Materials) governance and configuration baseline control, setting strategic direction for how parts are identified, BOMs are structured, complex configurations are managed, and product releases are governed.
You will partner closely with Hardware Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Program Management, and Field Service teams to make foundational decisions about part definitions, configuration and variant management, and the relationships between engineering, manufacturing, and service BOMs. This is a strategic product-data and process role, not a software engineering position. You will translate business needs into functional requirements and work with the software engineering team that builds configuration management systems.
Key responsibilities include:
- Establish and enforce configuration identification standards, part-numbering schemas, naming conventions, and revision control practices across engineering and manufacturing teams
- Define multi-level BOM structures and relationships between engineering BOMs, manufacturing BOMs, and service BOMs
- Establish standards for BOM accuracy, revisions, alternates, effectivity, and traceability across design, manufacturing, and service engineering
- Partner with Supply Chain and Manufacturing to assess how engineering changes affect component availability, supplier qualification, and inventory
- Work with the PLM Technical Lead and development team to provide functional requirements and product-data structure definitions
- Lead User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and validate that delivered capabilities meet business intent
- Identify and resolve product-data integrity issues across PLM, ERP, and related systems
- Develop configuration and change-management metrics, audits, and cross-functional improvements to reduce release errors and engineering change cycle time
- Set configuration management standards and provide guidance to Change Analysts and engineering teams on complex BOM, release, and product-data issues
Success in 6–12 months means defining a configuration and variant management strategy that enables clear part identification as Zipline scales, establishing Zipline's approach to engineering, manufacturing, and service BOM structures with clear ownership and traceability, and delivering functional requirements for priority PLM capabilities validated through UAT.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 5+ years of experience in engineering product configuration management, engineering change management, or product lifecycle management within hardware or consumer electronics development
- Experience establishing and governing BOM structures, part-numbering schemas, naming conventions, and revision control processes across hardware programs
- Deep knowledge of hardware release practices, including lifecycle states, approvals, release packages, CAD and drawing releases, manufacturing documentation, and audit trails
- Experience establishing configuration management practices with judgment to make foundational decisions and explain tradeoffs across engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and service
- Strong understanding of complex product structures, variant configuration rules, effectivity controls, and relationships between engineering, manufacturing, and service BOMs
- Experience with PLM systems such as Teamcenter, Agile, Windchill, Arena, or equivalent for configuration baseline management and engineering change workflows
- Track record of defining configuration management business requirements, partnering with software teams on supporting capabilities, and driving cross-functional adoption across large engineering organizations
- Experience integrating configuration management processes with manufacturing execution systems and supply chain planning tools
- Strong cross-functional leadership, clear communication, and ability to make and carry through decisions with minimal oversight
