Sr. Materials Program Manager – NPI & Fleet Operations

About the Role

Uber is launching AV Labs to accelerate the autonomous technology ecosystem. We're building out a high-velocity team of multi-disciplinary experts to turn real-world operations into high-quality data for our autonomous partners. This team is focused on the hardest problem in AV today: unlocking real-world, long-tail driving data. Autonomy is now a data race—and Uber has an edge: We collect rare, real-world driving data at a scale and capital efficiency no one else can match.

As the Sr. Materials Program Manager, you will own end-to-end material readiness, central warehouse inventory accuracy, and component availability powering our 500+ vehicle build and active data-collection fleet. You are the operational lead for material flow across our central warehouse, assembly factory (upfitter), and downstream spares pipeline. Your core mandate is 100% Clear-To-Build (CTB) availability—balancing hands-on warehouse problem-solving with data-driven inventory tools to protect factory uptime and maximize fleet availability.

Core Responsibilities

• Drive Tactical Execution & Shortage Resolution: Act as the core operational escalation point for our hardware supply pipeline. Personally lead the resolution of day-to-day part shortages, delivery delays, and warehouse bottlenecks to guarantee the vehicle assembly line never goes down.
• Own Central Warehouse Inventory & Spares Fulfillment: Assume ultimate accountability for physical inventory accuracy, receiving workflows, and stock control at our central warehouse. Manage the initial high-volume material pipeline to the vehicle manufacturing factory, and coordinate the downstream spares fulfillment network to ship critical hardware to active data collection cities as operations scale.
• Guarantee 100% Clear-To-Build (CTB) Status: Take direct ownership of part-level availability and material readiness for the build line and field garages. Establish strict min/max safety stock levels, reorder points (ROPs), and incoming inspection protocols to eliminate line-stoppage risks for custom sensors, harnesses, and compute blocks.
• Drive Factory Material Readiness & ECO Governance: Align central warehouse inventory directly with the factory’s production schedule and track configuration changes against the production M-BOM to catch component shortages early. Manage Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) on the shop floor, quarantining obsolete Rev-A parts and ensuring 100% data integrity across on-the-ground warehouse contractors.
• Synchronize Upfitter & Delivery Pipelines: Partner closely with internal sourcing to track part-level ETAs and manage inbound material flow to external build partners (e.g., Roush). Resolve shortage escalations internally to guarantee zero line stoppages on the assembly floor.
• Define WMS Requirements & Systems Integration: Partner with internal software teams as the operational lead to define data schemas, PO-linking workflows, and functional requirements for our custom Warehouse Management System (WMS). Ensure the system accurately tracks serialized hardware, enables financial traceability to POs, and provides real-time material visibility from receiving to assembly and field garages.

Qualifications

• 5+ Years of NPI Supply Chain & Materials Track Record: Proven experience managing physical inventory, clear-to-build (CTB) tracking, or spare-parts distribution networks within high-complexity hardware industries (e.g., autonomous vehicles, robotics, aerospace, automotive manufacturing, or high-density hardware deployment).
• BOM & Configuration Literacy: Strong competency parsing complex, multi-variant hardware Bills of Materials (EBOM/MBOM) and Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) specifically to forecast central warehouse staging and maintain a 100% clear-to-build status.
• Operational Team Direction & SOP Execution: Experience designing daily warehouse workflows, establishing standard operating procedures (SOPs), and auditing the output data integrity of on-the-ground warehouse contractors (EXTs), technicians, or third-party logistics vendors.
• Analytical Precision & Audit Metrics: Ability to engineer operational rigor, establish strict inventory cycle count cadences, and define precision metrics (e.g., inventory accuracy, CTB percentage, shortage buffer health, fill rates) within a rapid, scaling deployment environment.
• Cross-Functional Communication & Visibility: Exceptional ability to synthesize fragmented inventory timelines and supply disruptions into clear, actionable material-readiness frameworks and shortage dashboards for hardware engineering and operations leadership.
• Internal Sourcing & Upfitter Alignment: Proven track record collaborating with internal procurement/sourcing teams and external upfitters to track material availability, resolve part shortages, and de-risk single points of failure without creating supplier communication friction.

Preferred Qualifications

• Data Automation & Systems Fluency: Experience migrating physical hardware tracking out of manual spreadsheets, or familiarity using SQL, Power BI, Tableau, or scripting (Python/VBA) to build lightweight inventory control dashboards and exception reporting.
• AV & Automotive Hardware Depth: Direct experience managing inventory for dense sensor suites (LiDAR, RADAR, cameras), custom compute stacks, or automotive wiring harnesses.
• 0-to-1 Buildout Experience: Proven track record setting up physical warehouse operations, bin locations, and inventory procedures from scratch in a fast-paced startup or early-stage team environment.

For Sunnyvale, CA-based roles: The base salary range for this role is USD $180,000 per year - USD $200,000 per year.

You will be eligible to participate in Uber's bonus program, and may be offered an equity award & other types of comp. All full-time employees are eligible to participate in a 401(k) plan. You will also be eligible for various benefits.