Technical Program Manager

About BurnBot

Wildfire has stopped being a season. BurnBot builds the machines that get ahead of it — remotely operated systems that apply and contain prescribed fire, and platforms that clear heavy fuel on terrain that isn’t safe for crews.

Our fleet is at work today for PG&E, CAL FIRE, the U.S. Forest Service, Caltrans, fire districts, and tribal nations across California, Oregon, and Washington — treating land at up to 40x the pace of conventional methods. We’re roboticists, engineers, and career fire practitioners. Hardware we design in South San Francisco is in the dirt within weeks, and the people who designed it are usually standing next to it.

THE ROLE

We build machines that have to be in the field during a burn window that doesn’t move. That makes schedule a real engineering constraint, not a spreadsheet exercise.

You’ll own our hardware programs end to end — from concept through build, test, and fielded fleet — and be the person who knows what’s actually blocking, not what the status slide says.

WHAT YOU’LL OWN

• Program plans and schedules across mechanical, electrical, autonomy, manufacturing, and field operations

• Build readiness: BOMs, long-lead items, supplier commitments, and the material that has to be on the floor before a build starts

• Risk. Find it early, quantify it, and drive it down. Surfacing a slip in week two is worth more than heroics in week twelve.

• Change control — ECOs, configuration management, and knowing what’s actually on each machine in the fleet

• Communication. One clear source of truth for engineering, leadership, and the field team.

• Deployment coordination with operations, so machines and spares show up where the crews need them

WHAT YOU’LL BRING

• 6+ years of technical program management on hardware programs that actually shipped

• Fluency with the mechanics: BOMs, supply chain, build phases, test campaigns, and change control

• The technical depth to challenge an estimate and be right often enough to earn it

• Excellent written communication — you write the update people actually read

• Comfort in the shop and on a field site, not just in meetings

• B.S. in an engineering discipline, or equivalent hands-on experience

NICE TO HAVE

• Robotics, heavy equipment, or off-highway vehicle programs

• Low-volume, high-mix manufacturing

• Field service or fleet operations experience

• PLM and ERP tooling in a growing company

• You’ve been an engineer before you were a TPM