Manufacturing Controls Manager

What You'll Do

Leadership & People Management

• Lead, motivate and develop the team, building ownership, accountability, teamwork and engineering excellence.

• Set clear responsibilities and objectives; provide regular one-to-ones, coaching, mentoring, constructive feedback and development planning.

• Address performance concerns, behavioural challenges and conflict early, fairly and professionally; adapt to different working styles while maintaining consistent standards.

• Encourage respectful, evidence-based technical challenge; develop capability, succession and future technical leaders.

• Prioritise workloads and resources across programmes and operations, resolving capacity conflicts and protecting the team from unnecessary or conflicting demands.

Stakeholder, Supplier & Strategic Leadership

• Represent Manufacturing Controls in technical, programme and management forums; communicate decisions, risks and priorities clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.

• Build constructive cross-functional relationships, reconcile competing demands and hold stakeholders and suppliers accountable for agreed timing, quality and support.

• Address supplier delivery concerns objectively, define recovery actions and escalate where necessary.

• Execute the long-term Controls strategy set by the Head of E/E integration; improve standardisation, automation, diagnostic and software reuse, data utilisation and traceability. Embed lessons learned and build capability for evolving vehicle architectures.

Technical Delivery & Operational Responsibilities

Technical & Functional Leadership

Provide leadership and governance across:

• Vehicle electrical/electronic architectures and networks: CAN, CAN FD, LIN, Automotive Ethernet, UDS and DoIP.

• Manufacturing diagnostics and toolchains; ETAS GRADE-X authoring and controlled deployment; OTX and ODX/PDX diagnostic content.

• EOL test and validation; vehicle software download, coding, configuration, commissioning and release.

• Software and application development, production test systems, manufacturing controls applications, traceability and manufacturing systems integration.

• Cybersecurity, secure software deployment, product quality and vehicle fault diagnosis.

The manager need not execute every detailed engineering activity personally, but must have the judgement to challenge proposals, assess risks, recognise inadequate evidence, make informed decisions and apply the right expertise.

Programme Delivery & Production Readiness

• Own execution of Controls delivery in line with the strategic direction set by the Head of E/E integration, ensuring engineering capability supports VP, PP, SOP and series production.

• Translate programme and Manufacturing objectives into priorities, resource plans, deliverables and accountable ownership.

• Deliver requirements, validation plans, PFMEAs, Control Plans, readiness evidence, software releases, diagnostic content and supporting documentation to agreed programme timing.

• Ensure solutions are robust, repeatable, supportable and production ready before implementation.

• Balance immediate production needs with long-term engineering integrity; prevent temporary recovery measures becoming uncontrolled permanent solutions.

• Escalate significant risks with evidence, impact assessments, ownership and recovery proposals.

Quality, Issue Resolution & Operational Leadership

• Lead the response to significant vehicle, software, electrical, diagnostic and production-process issues.

• Coordinate Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality and suppliers, establishing clear ownership during production-critical situations.

• Use structured containment, root-cause analysis, corrective action and effectiveness verification; drive permanent resolution rather than repeated containment or avoidable rework.

• Remain calm and decisive under pressure, basing decisions on evidence, safety, quality and business impact.

• Challenge repeated failures, weak corrective actions, uncontrolled deviations and inadequate technical evidence.

• Ensure production pressure never creates unacceptable compromises to vehicle safety, product quality, process integrity, cybersecurity or traceability.

What You'll Bring

Technical Knowledge

Strong knowledge across several of the following areas is required:

• Automotive electrical/electronic systems; Manufacturing Controls and commissioning; CAN, CAN FD, LIN, Automotive Ethernet, UDS and DoIP.

• EOL test, software download, coding and configuration; ETAS GRADE-X, OTX and ODX/PDX or equivalent diagnostic environments.

• Software development and systems integration, potentially including C#, .NET, Java, Python, PowerShell, JavaScript/TypeScript, SQL and REST APIs; manufacturing systems, databases and traceability.

• Electric/hybrid architectures and high-voltage systems; PFMEA, Control Plans and structured problem solving; cybersecurity, configuration management and release governance; Software Defined Vehicle and OTA concepts.

Experience

• Significant experience in automotive manufacturing, controls, electrical/electronic systems, diagnostics, systems integration, vehicle software or a closely related discipline.

• Demonstrable engineering team leadership and line management, including objectives, coaching, development, workloads and performance management.

• Proven ability to lead through challenging technical, operational and people situations, and make decisions balancing timing, quality, cost, resources and technical requirements.

• Experience delivering multiple programmes or workstreams, engaging senior and cross-functional stakeholders, and managing supplier delivery concerns.

• Experience supporting prototype, pre-production, launch and series manufacture, with appropriate governance, validation and production-readiness processes.

• High-performance, premium or low-volume automotive manufacturing experience is highly desirable.

Personal Attributes

A strong people leader: fair, consistent and development focused; comfortable addressing difficult situations directly and professionally. Decisive, accountable, calm under pressure, resilient and pragmatic. Technically credible, able to challenge assumptions and unacceptable risk, and communicate clearly with technical and non-technical audiences.

Success Measures

• Team performance and capability: clear ownership, effective succession and demonstrable development.

• Programme delivery: on-time delivery and validated readiness across VP, PP, SOP and series production.

• Production performance: fewer Controls-related defects, repeat concerns, disruptions and avoidable rework.

• Technical maturity: robust diagnostics, software download, coding, commissioning, traceability and EOL capability.

• Leadership effectiveness: timely, professional resolution of resource conflicts, underperformance and competing priorities.

• Quality and governance: adherence to requirements, validation, configuration control, releases, cybersecurity, PFMEA and Control Plans.

• Issue resolution: effective containment and permanent corrective action supported by verified evidence.

• Stakeholder confidence: clear communication, effective escalation and constructive relationships.

• Continuous improvement: measurable gains in robustness, automation, standardisation, diagnostics, software quality and efficiency.

• Culture and behaviours: accountability, collaboration, constructive challenge, engineering discipline and professionalism.