Senior Program Manager, Automation and AI

Build the future, spark innovation and align your career with purpose.

McKinstry is innovating the waste and climate harm out of the built environment and creating lasting impact. Together, we’re building a thriving planet.

Buildings are a leading contributor to the climate crisis, generating nearly 40% of total global energy-related carbon emissions. We’re making a lasting impact on our industry and within our communities by addressing the climate, affordability and equity crises through:

• renewables and energy services
• engineering and design
• construction and facility services

To get where we’re going, we need big thinkers, problem solvers and collaborative mindsets. Does that sound like you?

McKinstry is looking for a Senior Program Manager – AI and Automation to join our Offsite Manufacturing division in Seattle, WA. The Senior Program Manager – AI and Automation owns the pipeline that converts emerging manufacturing automation and artificial intelligence capability into deployed, value-generating solutions for the business. The role discovers and maintains awareness of business needs across the business unit, researches and evaluates candidate technologies, builds the value proposition and business case, and proves solutions through structured pilots.

Automation solutions are refined and coordinated with Manufacturing Engineering for implementation; AI applications are implemented by this role directly alongside the business function they affect. Additional responsibilities may include:

• Maintain a living, prioritized view of AI and automation opportunities across the business unit by interviewing leaders and embedding with production, engineering, supply chain, quality, project management, finance, and administrative teams as needed.
• Conduct structured discovery (e.g. process observation, time and data studies, stakeholder interviews) to separate real constraints from symptoms and size the opportunity before any solution is proposed.
• Translate business pain into problem statements and requirements that vendors, engineers, and internal stakeholders can act on.
• Track the business unit’s strategic plan, growth targets, and live production commitments so the technology pipeline is sequenced against what the business needs next, not against what is newest.
• Work with Manufacturing Engineering to determine current bottlenecks in the production process, and seek out solutions that could increase throughput through use of AI and/or Automation.

• Scout and maintain a current, credible market view across manufacturing automation, to include robotics, material handling, machine vision, sensors, controls, and across enterprise and applied AI platforms, vendors, and integrators.
• Run structured evaluations: requirements definition, RFI/RFP, vendor demonstrations, reference checks, technical feasibility assessment, and total cost of ownership.
• Assess integration fit against existing systems of record (ERP, PLM, MES, document control) and coordinate with Enterprise IT, Data, Cybersecurity, and Legal on architecture, data handling, licensing, and security review.
• Distinguish deployable capability from immature capability and report that distinction plainly, including when the recommendation is to wait or to do nothing.
• Serve as the Modular Products representative to the Applied Frontier Technology team and enterprise technology teams — communicating the business unit's automation and AI roadmap, ingesting their recommendations and emerging-capability guidance, and feeding those inputs into the evaluation pipeline.

• Build the business case for each candidate…