Configuration and Change Control Manager

What you'll do

• Own and maintain the V-BAT fielded and as-maintained configuration baseline for aircraft, payloads, software, ground equipment, support equipment, and related sustainment assets.
• Track aircraft serial numbers, hardware revisions, software versions, payload configurations, ground system configurations, fielded modifications, retrofit status, and customer-specific baselines.
• Manage the change control process for fielded V-BAT systems, ensuring approved changes are controlled, traceable, and applied to the correct aircraft, customers, and configurations.
• Support Engineering Change Requests, Engineering Change Orders, change impact assessments, release readiness reviews, retrofit plans, and service action planning.
• Ensure fielded fixes, retrofits, software updates, hardware changes, payload changes, and service actions are tied to the correct serial numbers, configurations, customers, and effectivity ranges.
• Maintain configuration records for deployed aircraft, spares, payloads, ground equipment, support equipment, and field-modified assets.
• Partner with Fleet Support, Sustainment Engineering, Product Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Customer Success, Operations, and Configuration Management to control changes across the V-BAT fleet.
• Support release readiness reviews for software, hardware, payload, ground system, maintenance, and support equipment updates.
• Ensure changes are documented, approved, communicated, implemented, and traceable from engineering approval through field deployment.
• Maintain a clear view of which customers, aircraft, payloads, ground systems, spares, and support equipment are affected by each change.
• Define and maintain change effectivity logic, including serial number applicability, build applicability, customer applicability, configuration applicability, and retrofit applicability.
• Coordinate with Product Engineering and Sustainment Engineering to understand technical change intent, required implementation steps, and field impact.
• Coordinate with Fleet Support and Customer Success to ensure field teams understand which updates, inspections, retrofits, or service actions apply to each customer asset.
• Coordinate with Manufacturing, Quality, and Supply Chain to ensure production records, nonconformance records, part revisions, supplier changes, and field configurations remain aligned.
• Identify configuration gaps, data inconsistencies, undocumented modifications, incomplete retrofit records, and risks to fielded fleet traceability.
• Escalate configuration risks that could affect fleet readiness, customer support, release execution, repair decisions, or technical troubleshooting.
• Support audits, reviews, and investigations requiring accurate configuration history, change history, serial number traceability, or fielded asset applicability.
• Improve configuration management processes, change control mechanisms, release tracking, field modification tracking, and reporting tools as the sustainment function scales.
• Provide leadership updates on configuration health, change control status, open risks, affected assets, and field deployment progress.

Required qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in configuration management, change control, aviation sustainment, hardware/software product support, manufacturing operations, product lifecycle management, engineering operations, or complex hardware sustainment.
• Demonstrated experience managing configuration baselines, revision control, change effectivity, fielded asset records, engineering change processes, or product release control in a complex technical environment.
• Strong understanding of configuration baselines, as-built records, as-maintained records, revision control, serial number traceability, effectivity management, and engineering change control.
• Experience supporting Engineering Change Requests, Engineering Change Orders, release readiness reviews, retrofit planning, service actions, or fielded product updates.
• Experience tracking or managing hardware revisions, software versions, payload configurations, ground equipment configurations, customer-specific configurations, or deployed asset baselines.
• Ability to determine which aircraft, systems, customers, configurations, or serial numbers are affected by a given change, issue, release, retrofit, or service action.
• Experience working across Product Engineering, Sustainment Engineering, Fleet Support, Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain, Operations, Customer Success, and Configuration Management teams.
• Strong technical fluency with bills of material, part revisions, drawings, software releases, hardware changes, configuration records, product structures, or fielded system documentation.
• Strong process discipline and attention to detail, with the ability to maintain accurate records across multiple systems, stakeholders, and changing priorities.
• Ability to identify configuration risks, traceability gaps, undocumented changes, incomplete records, and process breakdowns before they affect fleet readiness or customer support.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to clearly communicate change applicability, implementation status, configuration risks, and decision needs.
• Ability to operate independently as a senior IC and drive cross-functional accountability without direct authority.
• Ability to balance configuration rigor with field support urgency, release timelines, customer needs, and operational realities.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with aviation, defense, unmanned systems, robotics, aerospace manufacturing, complex hardware/software products, or deployed technical systems.
• Familiarity with PLM, ERP, MES, CMMS, service management systems, requirements systems, software release systems, or configuration management databases.
• Experience with aircraft serial number tracking, software release management, payload configuration management, ground system configuration, depot repair records, or field modification tracking.
• Experience with ECO/ECR processes, MRB, FRACAS, RCCA, service bulletins, maintenance releases, retrofit campaigns, or fleet-wide service actions.
• Familiarity with configuration audits, physical configuration audits, functional configuration audits, controlled baselines, product structures, or digital thread concepts.
• Experience supporting military, defense, aviation, or high-reliability customer environments where configuration accuracy affects safety, readiness, supportability, or contractual commitments.
• Experience working in a startup, high-growth, defense technology, aerospace, robotics environment.