Engineering Program Manager, Occupant Safety and Restraints

What to Expect

As an Engineering Program Manager in Occupant Safety & Restraints Team, you will facilitate development, validation, and launch of occupant safety systems for current and future Tesla produced Globally. You will work cross-functionally with Vehicle Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Quality teams along the full program lifecycle - from design development and validation through launch, production ramp, and post-SOP support.

Your focus is delivering excellence in occupant safety while staying aligned with global engineering standards and strategies. You will drive coordination, development, and execution of engineering solutions for problem resolution, performance improvement, and cost and mass optimization.

To excel in this role, you must thoroughly understand the needs of the business so you can build timelines, workflows, and plans that meet Tesla's aggressive targets. You must have enough technical depth to help cross-functional teams develop design guidelines, interpret test results, and give technical guidance on passive safety system performance, and how those systems interact with other vehicle systems.

Commodities of focus include airbags, seat belts, and crash/pedestrian sensing, and integrating those systems into a vehicle that meets all safety targets. You will report to the Lead Staff Engineering Program Manager for Safety and Restraints and work shoulder to shoulder with safety engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, quality, and other engineering program managers of related vehicle subsystems.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as a key point of contact for cross-functional teams on airbag, seatbelt, crash sensing, and pedestrian protection systems
• Define, implement, and drive program requirements, workflows, and plans. Manage timelines and risks, uncover roadblocks, define critical paths, including the relevant KPI to track engineering deliverables for every program milestone
• Plan and execute engineering changes for occupant safety systems per Tesla's Change Management process
• Holistically identify risks and opportunities for safety attribute and its domains, enable the resolution of technical conflicts that require cross-functional alignment, and drive issues to closure
• Work continuously with supplier project managers so their timelines and deliverables stay aligned with the vehicle master plan such as prototype/production build schedules
• Coordinate system, and component level validation timelines with suppliers to ensure DVP completion. Foresee restraints validation, including test planning and execution with cross-functional teams. Ensure validation material reach testing sites and create purchase orders for test series
• Establish and lead cross-functional teams forums to define safety standards, requirements, and specifications

What You’ll Bring

• Degree in Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent experience
• 2+ years of relevant experience in automotive or manufacturing required
• Competent understanding of vehicle safety restraint systems and/or vehicle crashworthiness with solid engineering fundamentals and mechanical aptitude in problem-solving. Able to use data and metrics to quantify risk and make recommendations
• Demonstrated ability to execute complex, multi-team projects in parallel, on a short timeline, and to pivot quickly as priorities change with a "Can do" attitude: find paths around obstacles, see opportunities under technical difficulty and tight timing, and deliver results with limited resources