Product Lead Jobs in Irvine, CA

The Staff Technical Program Manager (TPM), Vehicle Service Readiness & Product Integration, is a systems-integration role responsible for service requirements integration, validation, and lifecycle service readiness across Rivian's active and future vehicle platforms, including R1, EDV, and R2. This role serves as the primary bridge between Product Development (PD) and the Service Operations functions responsible for service engineering, diagnostics, and tooling.

Operating with a high degree of initiative, independent judgment, and indirect leadership, the Staff TPM is accountable for gathering, analyzing, and integrating hardware, software, service tooling, and other service-related requirements into a consolidated service position and driving that position into the Product Development process — ensuring that service parts, service manuals, diagnostic frameworks, and service tooling are 100% mature and deployed by vehicle launch. Beyond individual program execution, the Staff TPM sets the standards and governance frameworks other TPMs use to integrate requirements, serves as the escalation point for the most complex and/or ambiguous cross-functional trade-offs before they reach the Sr. Manager or Director level, and mentors peer TPMs to raise technical and program rigor across the team.

The Staff Technical Program Manager, Vehicle Service Readiness & Product Integration will be expected to report in a hybrid capacity to our Irvine, CA office and report to our Sr. Manager, Vehicle Service Readiness & Product Integration.

1. Service Requirements Integration & Governance

• Lead regular technical reviews with Service Engineering, Diagnostic Engineering, and Service Tooling subject matter experts to gather, analyze, and integrate hardware, software, service tooling, and other service-related requirements into a consolidated service position, across multiple concurrent vehicle platforms.
• Translate combined serviceability constraints into clear Service Design Targets tied directly to vehicle program milestones, and establish the standards and playbooks other platform TPMs use to do the same.
• Present a unified service requirements position to Product Development, Vehicle Line Directors, and cross-functional stakeholders, ensuring Service Operations maintains a cohesive and consistent stance within the development process.
• Drive requirements into Flow, CAD reviews, and related engineering forums before every iteration of design freeze to reduce fragmented communication and protect program timing.
• Establish best practices and standards of work for service requirements integration across the TPM function.

2. Service Parts Strategy Identification & Consolidation

• Partner with Service Engineering and Design Release Engineers (DREs) to drive the "BOM scraping" processes during early vehicle program milestones, identify newly designed components and assemblies, and determine component-level service parts.
• Integrate the Service New Product Introduction (SNPI) team early into the vehicle program to map out comprehensive lifecycle strategies for identified parts.
• Drive the milestones for the formal creation and release of the Service Bill of Materials (SBOM) and labor codes structure across assigned and adjacent platforms.
• Support the execution of Service Parts Change Management to ensure that SNPI and logistics teams utilize clean released service data to construct the forecast for distribution centers.

3. Validation and Readiness Execution

• Own end-to-end validation of consolidated service targets and requirements across both virtual and physical development stages for the most complex and/or highest-risk assigned vehicle programs.
• Lead virtual CAD reviews and digital packaging assessments within CATIA to verify service access, clearance, and labor time expectations.
• Manage physical serviceability validation programs for engineering and manufacturing builds, encompassing asset allocation, mechanical teardowns, service tooling trials, time studies, and high-voltage electrical safety compliance.
• Ensure physical builds validate the requirements established during the virtual phase and support milestone signoff readiness, serving as the final technical checkpoint before leadership sign-off.
• Align physical teardown validation results with Technical Writing teams to gate the formal release of step-by-step Service Manual procedures and localized torque specifications.
• Track the end-to-end service tooling release lifecycle from prototype to production signoff with the Service Tooling Team, ensuring specialized field tools are validated on physical builds and ready for manufacturing deployment.

4. Cross-Functional Risk Mitigation & Technical Escalation

• Serve as the escalation point for peer TPMs on the most complex technical trade-offs across packaging, diagnostics, tooling, and mechanical access before they impact downstream timing or require Sr. Manager/Director escalation.
• Identify, document, and escalate design non-compliance through Virtual Service Issues and other tracking mechanisms when service requirements are not being met.
• Build early alignment across stakeholders to reduce downstream Engineering Change Requests, part deviations, and late-stage launch risk, and drive cross-platform standards to eliminate recurring classes of risk.
• Represent Vehicle Service Readiness & Product Integration in executive and cross-functional program reviews.

5. Milestone Execution and Change Management

• Own execution of Product Development Service Functional Overlay milestones for assigned vehicle programs, including the most schedule-critical and/or technically ambiguous programs.
• Use the RDP Service Functional Overlay to track alignment between defined service requirements and current CAD maturity, and drive continuous improvement of the tracking dashboards and processes used across the TPM team.
• Track, triage, and evaluate service-impacting changes with clear ownership, service strategy, and next steps.
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to other TPMs on requirements integration, validation methodology, and change governance.

• 100 percent on-time completion of RDP Service Functional Overlay milestones for assigned vehicle programs
• Effective tracking, management, and triage of service-impacting change drivers across assigned and supported platforms
• Strong technical integration efficiency in resolving tradeoffs and delivering unified service positions into Product Development and Engineering Systems
• Early adoption and validation of serviceability requirements across virtual and physical development stages
• Reduction in escalations reaching Sr. Manager/Director level through proactive standards-setting and peer mentorship

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline required; Master's degree preferred
• 6 to 10+ years of experience in technical program management, systems engineering, automotive launch operations, or a related field, preferably within the EV sector
• Demonstrated success influencing matrixed cross-functional stakeholders in high-velocity, high-stress product development or launch environments, including at the Director and Vehicle Line level
• Proven ability to operate with a high degree of initiative, independent judgment, and indirect leadership capability
• Proven ability to negotiate technical tradeoffs, drive accountability, and build alignment without direct authority, including mentoring or informally guiding peer TPMs
• Strong conceptual understanding of EV vehicle architectures, high-voltage battery systems, software configuration management, diagnostics, and design-for-serviceability standards
• Familiarity with CATIA or equivalent CAD and PLM systems, including the ability to review complex design geometry in support of serviceability assessments
• Strong skills in JIRA/Confluence, Flow, and dashboard creation