Configuration Management Leader

Beehive Industries is dedicated to Powering American Defense by revolutionizing the design, development, and delivery of jet propulsion systems to support the warfighter. Through the integration of additive manufacturing, the company aims to meet the growing and urgent needs for unmanned aerial defense by dramatically improving a jet engine’s speed to market, fuel efficiency, and cost.  

Founded in 2020, the company is headquartered in Centennial, Colorado, with additional facilities in Knoxville, Tennessee, Loveland Ohio, and Mount Vernon, Ohio. Beehive is committed to grow and advance the defense industrial base while manufacturing exclusively in the USA. This role will be located at our Loveland, Ohio facility.

Role Overview

The Configuration Management Leader is responsible for leading the engineering configuration management function while remaining deeply involved in day-to-day execution. This player-coach role combines people leadership, team development, workload prioritization, and functional strategy with a substantial individual contributor workload. The leader will establish the processes, governance, and controls required to maintain product configuration integrity throughout development and production.

Serving as the organization’s configuration management subject matter expert, this leader ensures product requirements, technical data, baselines, and approved changes remain accurate, traceable, and compliant. The successful candidate will partner across engineering, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and program teams while applying configuration discipline in a practical, scalable way that fits a fast-paced, evolving start-up environment.

What You’ll Do...

• Lead the engineering configuration management function, including responsibility for team direction, workload prioritization, performance management, coaching, development, and capability building.

• Lead and execute a strategic approach and process improvements for part numbers, revision control, and piece-part and assembly level management. The right candidate will have a deep understanding of the pros/cons of different approaches to this in industry.

• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, operating rhythms, and performance expectations for the configuration management team.

• Balance leadership responsibilities with a substantial hands-on workload, personally executing critical configuration management activities alongside the team.

• Assess functional capacity, identify capability gaps, and develop staffing, training, tools, and process improvement plans to support business and program needs.

• Assign and prioritize work based on program risk, production needs, technical complexity, and business objectives.

• Provide technical guidance, review team deliverables, remove barriers, and ensure configuration management work is completed accurately and on schedule.

• Build strong working relationships across engineering, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and product management to improve accountability and execution throughout the product lifecycle.

• Define and execute the engineering configuration management strategy, governance framework, processes, and controls for product development and production.

• Personally manage complex or high-risk configuration management activities, including baseline establishment, change evaluation, configuration status accounting, technical data reviews, and implementation planning.

• Establish and maintain traceability among product requirements and associated performance, functional, mechanical, electrical, controls, design, manufacturing, and operational information.

• Chair the Configuration Control Board for engine products and lead the evaluation, approval, implementation, effectivity, and documentation of configuration changes.

• Ensure approved changes are properly incorporated across drawings, models, bills of material, specifications, work instructions, technical records, and other affected product data.

• Maintain the integrity of structured product data, including system documentation, engineering drawings, design artifacts, product baselines, technical records, and associated configuration information.

• Develop and maintain configuration management procedures, standards, and design practices that comply with applicable industry standards, military specifications, contractual requirements, program requirements, and model-based systems engineering initiatives.

• Monitor configuration status, identify discrepancies or breakdowns in configuration control, and drive timely resolution.

• Support the design, analysis, evaluation, assembly, testing, and systems integration of turbomachinery components and engine products using sound engineering and configuration management principles.

• Serve as the configuration management subject matter expert within multidisciplinary engineering and program teams.

• Lead technical root-cause and corrective-action initiatives related to configuration, documentation, process, or product issues.

• Implement sustainable process and product improvements based on lessons learned, audit findings, production feedback, and program performance.

• Coordinate across engineering, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, operations, and program management to support the full development lifecycle and transition products from design into production.

• Communicate significant technical, process, resource, or schedule risks to stakeholders and senior leadership in a timely manner.

• Ensure technical decisions, configuration changes, and supporting data are properly documented, controlled, and retained.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

You have...

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or another technical discipline from an accredited university or college.

Experience

• 10 years of experience supporting aviation gas turbine products or systems (preferred).

• At least five years of experience in an engineering configuration management role.

• At least two years of experience leading, chairing, or serving in a leadership capacity on a Configuration Control Board.

• Demonstrated experience directly leading employees, including assigning work, managing performance, coaching team members, and developing technical capability.

• Experience operating in a player-coach capacity with simultaneous people leadership and significant individual contributor responsibilities.

• Demonstrated experience establishing, scaling, and improving configuration management processes for NPI and production environments.

• Demonstrated experience establishing configuration management processes for product development and production environments aligned with military specifications.

• Demonstrated experience managing complex engineering changes from initial evaluation through approval, implementation, effectivity, and closure.

Skills & Competencies

• Advanced knowledge of engineering configuration management principles, including product baselines, change control, document control, configuration identification, configuration status accounting, audits, effectivity, and structured product data integrity.

• Strong understanding of configuration management requirements across the development and production phases of a product.

• Comfortable making progress amid ambiguity, evolving processes, and changing priorities without compromising product integrity, compliance, or accountability.

• Ability to lead and develop a technical team while remaining personally accountable for substantial hands-on deliverables.

• Familiarity with Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T).

• Strong written and verbal communication, interpersonal, and technical leadership skills.

• Demonstrated ability to influence decisions and drive accountability across functions without relying solely on formal authority.

• Proven ability to establish practical processes that provide appropriate control without creating unnecessary administrative burden.

• Demonstrated problem-solving ability and strong program leadership and execution skills.

• Proven ability to work independently, learn quickly, and operate effectively in fast-paced, cross-functional teams.

• The ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government-issued security clearance is required. U.S. citizenship is required, as only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance.

If this sounds like you, please submit an application with your resume. This could be the opportunity you are looking for to expand your skills, contribute to a winning team, and work with talented people who love what they do and take pride in our mission. 

Beehive Industries offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes group Medical, Dental, Life, and Short and Long-Term disability coverage from day one. We also offer a generous 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan with a Company match. Every role at Beehive Industries is bonus eligible and will also receive equity in the company.

Beehive Industries is committed to full compliance with applicable anti-discrimination laws. We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We strive to create an inclusive work environment and will not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.