Configuration & BOM Engineer

Location: Washington, DC

Who we are

The role 

You will be the single owner of the Bill of Materials across our products — the person who can answer, at any moment and with confidence, what the product is made of, what it weighs, what it costs, where it comes from, and whether we can build it. 

This is not a data-entry role. You will sit at the intersection of design engineering, procurement, quality and manufacturing, and you will be the one who turns a set of CAD assemblies and engineering intentions into an executable, auditable, buildable structure. You will decide how we represent our products as data, and you will hold the rest of the organization to that standard. 

The day-to-day 

• Maintain a single, trusted source of truth for product structure across all programs, revisions and configurations. 

• Track as-designed and as-built mass at line, assembly and system level. Surface variance against allocation early, and make it visible to the people who can act on it. 

• Maintain target, quoted and actual cost per line; roll up to assembly and unit cost; track cost at volume and flag drift against program targets. 

• Record and verify country of origin and manufacturer for every part. Flag sourcing, export-control, ITAR/EAR and supply-chain-resilience risks to the relevant teams before they become schedule risks. 

• Define and maintain the status model that the whole company runs on, including: 

• Engineering released — the line is cleared by design and approved to purchase 

• Sourced — a qualified supplier and part number are identified 

• On order — a purchase order is placed 

• EDD — a current, credible estimated delivery date is held against every open line 

• Determine when an assembly's inputs are sufficiently cleared, ordered and inbound to trigger manufacturing to prepare for receiving and production. Manufacturing should be able to act on your signal without checking it. 

• Run the ECO/ECN process: assess change impact on mass, cost, schedule and inventory; manage effectivity and obsolescence; ensure nothing changes in CAD without changing in the BOM. 

• Define and improve our PLM/ERP data model, tooling and automation so that BOM health is continuously visible rather than periodically assembled by hand. 

• Give engineering leadership and program management a clear, current view of build readiness, long-lead exposure, cost and mass position — and the specific blockers behind each. 

You should apply if you 

• Significant experience owning BOMs for complex electromechanical hardware in a fast-moving environment — aerospace, defense, automotive, robotics, space or consumer hardware at scale. 

• Deep practical fluency with PLM and ERP systems (e.g. ION, Windchill, Teamcenter, Arena, Duro, Odoo, SAP, NetSuite) and a clear view of how product data should be structured. 

• Strong working knowledge of engineering change management, revision and configuration control, and effectivity. 

• Comfortable reading mechanical drawings, electrical schematics and CAD assemblies, and able to challenge an engineer on what they have actually released. 

• Experience working directly with procurement and suppliers on lead times, quotes, origin and qualification. 

• Highly numerate and systematic. You instinctively automate repeated work — scripting, SQL or Python is a strong advantage. 

• Exceptionally organized and direct. You chase the missing line. You escalate without drama. You are comfortable being the person who says "we are not OK to build." 

• Able to work with ambiguity and set the standard where none exists yet. 

• US Citizenship  

Note: We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications; ability and impact cannot be summarized in a few bullet points. 

Nice to Have 

• Experience taking a product from prototype through NPI into serial production. 

• Familiarity with export control (ITAR/EAR) and defense supply chain requirements. 

• Experience with mass budgeting on weight-critical platforms (airborne, maritime or space). 

• Background in a company that scaled its hardware function quickly. 

Join Helsing and work with world-leading experts in their fields 

• Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns

• The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world

• Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defense industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward

• In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts

• We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practice responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about

What we offer

• A focus on outcomes, not time-tracking

• A generous compensation and benefits package (in addition to base salary) that includes, but may not be limited to, insurance coverage (medical and travel), flexible paid time off, paid holidays, and remote and/or hybrid work available depending on position. All compensation and benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of the underlying plans or programs, as applicable and as may be amended, terminated or superseded from time to time.

• Growth toward global roles in our Finance organization

The base salary offered to the successful candidate will be determined by a variety of factors including relevant experience, qualifications, education, skill level, interview performance, and the level and scope of the position.   

Helsing is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We will consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, genetics, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.  Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.