Forward Deployed Design Lead — Product Lifecycle Management

Who We Are & Why Join Us

Avathon is the leading Industrial AI autonomy platform, helping customers across heavy industries -- energy, mining, manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and logistics -- accelerate the journey toward autonomous operations. Our platform is built on a Computational Knowledge Graph foundation that contextualizes and connects operational data across siloed systems, bringing together time series, structured, unstructured, and machine vision data to power AI-driven applications in asset performance management, supply chain intelligence, visual AI, and global trade management. With capabilities spanning digital twins, normal behavior modeling, natural language processing, and computer vision, Avathon delivers real-time predictive intelligence and agentic decision-making at industrial scale.

Cutting-Edge AI Innovation -- Join a team at the forefront of AI, developing groundbreaking solutions that shape the future. High-Growth Environment -- Thrive in a fast-scaling startup where agility, collaboration, and rapid professional growth are the norm. Meaningful Impact -- Work on AI-driven projects that drive real change across industries and improve lives.

Learn more at: avathon.com

About Avathon

Avathon is the leading Industrial AI autonomy platform, helping customers across heavy industries — energy, mining, manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and logistics — accelerate the journey toward autonomous operations. Our platform is built on a Computational Knowledge Graph foundation that contextualizes and connects operational data across siloed systems, bringing together time series, structured, unstructured, and machine vision data to power AI-driven applications in asset performance management, supply chain intelligence, visual AI, and global trade management.

With capabilities spanning digital twins, normal behavior modeling, natural language processing, and computer vision, Avathon delivers real-time predictive intelligence and agentic decision-making at industrial scale.

About the Role

The Forward Deployed Design Lead — PLM is embedded directly at customer sites as the primary experience and implementation owner for Avathon's Product Lifecycle Management deployments. You live at the intersection of PLM domain knowledge and experience design, responsible for configuring, implementing, and continuously improving how engineering teams, manufacturing planners, and quality engineers interact with Avathon's AI layer across their PLM environment.

You will spend Monday through Thursday working alongside CAD engineers, PLM administrators, and manufacturing process owners — mapping BOM workflows, configuring integrations with PLM and ERP systems, designing the screens and workflows users will rely on daily, and driving adoption from go-live through steady-state operations. Fridays are typically remote for synthesis, documentation, and cross-team collaboration.

Key Responsibilities

PLM Implementation & Configuration

Own end-to-end implementation of Avathon's AI platform within customer PLM environments — configuring product structure hierarchies, BOM variants, change workflow rules, and AI-enriched analytics views to match each customer's engineering and manufacturing context

Lead functional configuration of PLM-adjacent modules: engineering change order (ECO) tracking, eBOM / mBOM / sBOM linkage, part master data enrichment, effectivity management, and configuration control workflows aligned to customer standards

Set up and validate integrations between Avathon's platform and customer PLM systems (Siemens Teamcenter, PTC Windchill, Dassault 3DEXPERIENCE, SAP PLM, Oracle Agile PLM) — ensuring BOM data, change notifications, and lifecycle state transitions flow accurately and traceably

Configure data pipelines from CAD/PDM sources and ERP systems — validating part metadata extraction, revision mapping, and BOM hand-off logic in live engineering environments

Conduct go-live readiness checks — verifying integration health, data completeness, user access, and workflow configuration before each deployment milestone

Experience Design & Workflow Mapping

Lead onsite discovery and process mapping sessions — working directly with PLM administrators, CAD engineers, manufacturing engineers, and IT architects to document current-state workflows and define the future-state experience on Avathon's platform

Produce implementation-grade design artifacts: annotated screen flows, configured BOM view layouts, change workflow diagrams, alert routing specs, and role-based dashboard definitions — directly actionable by the engineering team without further interpretation

Design and validate end-user interfaces within Avathon's PLM-adjacent surfaces: BOM comparison views, engineering change dashboards, digital thread navigation, and AI-driven part similarity and anomaly detection screens

Facilitate working sessions with engineering and manufacturing stakeholders to validate designs against real workflow scenarios — iterating in real time based on user feedback before configuration is locked

Ensure designs reflect the operational realities of PLM users: structured review cycles, multi-discipline concurrency, cross-site data sharing, and the precision demands of engineering documentation and compliance

User Adoption & Change Management

Design and execute role-specific onboarding programs — building training plans, hands-on exercises, quick-reference guides, and SOPs tailored to how each PLM user group (PLM administrator, design engineer, manufacturing planner, quality engineer, change board member) will use Avathon daily

Conduct live training sessions and hands-on working sessions at client sites — coaching engineering teams through new AI-augmented change management and BOM analytics capabilities with the domain credibility to earn their trust

Identify adoption barriers early — distrust of AI-generated insights, workflow disruption, data quality concerns — and develop targeted interventions in partnership with client PLM leads and process owners

Track adoption metrics post-go-live (active users, change workflow utilization , BOM accuracy rates, AI recommendation acceptance) and use data to drive continuous improvement sprints with the client

Serve as the primary point of contact for end-user questions, configuration requests, and workflow adjustments during hypercare — escalating to engineering only when platform-level changes are required

Client Engagement & Delivery

Act as the day-to-day client contact for all design, configuration, and adoption activities — building trusted working relationships with engineering leads, PLM system owners, and IT integration teams

Facilitate weekly client working sessions, design reviews, and sprint demos that keep stakeholders aligned, engaged, and confident in the deployment's progress

Maintain implementation documentation — configuration logs, integration specs, training materials, and acceptance test records — that serve as the client's operational handbook post go-live

Capture PLM workflow patterns, integration approaches, and configuration best practices from each engagement and contribute them to Avathon's delivery playbooks, accelerating future PLM implementations

Identify opportunities to expand Avathon's footprint within accounts — additional PLM modules, new user populations such as supply chain or service engineering, or adjacent use cases in quality and manufacturing — and surface them to the engagement director

PLM Platform Proficiency

Candidates should have hands-on implementation or configuration experience with one or more enterprise PLM platforms — such as Siemens Teamcenter, PTC Windchill, Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE/ENOVIA, SAP PLM, or Oracle Agile PLM — as well as familiarity with mid-market and cloud-native solutions including Aras Innovator, Arena PLM, Autodesk Vault, or Propel PLM.

Experience integrating PLM environ