Plant IT Manager, Own Major Plant IT Strategy

This is the senior seat for someone who wants to run a plant's entire manufacturing IT relationship without managing headcount. You set the strategy, you drive it through influence, and you answer for the outcomes.

Pave Talent is hiring on behalf of our client, a large-scale, regulated manufacturer with a major production site in Fremont, CA. The site runs audited, compliance-heavy operations and is investing in digitalizing the plant floor.

• - Senior individual contributors who own a plant's IT relationship solo or near-solo today and like it that way
• - People who drive outcomes through influence across operations, quality, supply chain, and global IT, with no direct authority
• - Business partners fluent in balancing global IT standards against local plant needs
• - Operators who want scope and visibility, not span of control

If your best story is growing a team from 3 to 12, this is not your role. This seat is built for the person who moves the plant forward through partnership, not headcount.

You will be the face of IT for an entire manufacturing site, sitting between site leadership and global IT delivery. That is board-level visibility on the plant side and enterprise reach on the IT side, the kind of exposure that usually takes years to earn inside a large organization.

You own the plant-level manufacturing IT strategy and roadmap end to end. You partner with global IT on delivery, coordinate heavily across cross-functional site teams, and champion digitalization on the floor. Expect 10 to 20 percent travel.

• - Define and drive the plant's manufacturing IT strategy and multi-year roadmap
• - Bridge manufacturing operations and IT, translating floor needs into IT delivery
• - Balance global IT standards with local plant requirements, and negotiate the trade-offs
• - Partner with global IT delivery teams to land projects on the site
• - Support Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) controls and internal and external audits
• - Champion digitalization and shop-floor technology adoption across the site
• - Coordinate across operations, quality, and supply chain to align IT priorities with plant goals

This is a solo senior seat. You will not have a team, and cross-functional coordination is the core of the job, not a side task. You get things done by influencing people who do not report to you, in a regulated environment where audit and compliance are constant. If you want a fully staffed function with direct reports on day one, this is not it.

If you want real ownership of a major plant's IT with the autonomy to run it your way, it is.

• - Bachelor's in IT, Computer Science, or Business Process Management, or equivalent experience
• - 7+ years technical experience, including 5+ years in IT business-partner roles in a manufacturing environment (or 5 to 8 years IT service management with 3+ in management)
• - Proven senior-stakeholder management and influence without direct authority
• - Experience balancing global IT standards against local site needs
• - Comfort operating in a regulated, audited environment (SOX exposure a plus)
• - Background in semiconductor, pharma, medtech, or another regulated manufacturing sector
• - Hands-on experience with plant-floor digitalization or manufacturing systems
• - Prior experience as the sole IT partner for a site