Principal, Defects Reduction, EU Defects Reduction
DESCRIPTION
Have you ever ordered a product on Amazon and wondered about the complex processes and systems running behind the scenes to power our operations? If so, this role is for you!
• Operations is at the heart of the Amazon customer experience. Each action we undertake is on behalf of our customers, and surpassing customer expectations is our passion.
• We improve customer experience by continuously optimizing the complex movements of goods from vendors and sellers to customers throughout Europe.
• Our operations teams are transversal centers of expertise, composed of engineers, analysts, scientists, technical program managers, and developers. We focus on defects reduction among the complex problems, operational processes, key tradeoffs, and critical decisions at Amazon.
• Defects Reduction connects with core operational organizations responsible for our fulfillment centers, internal and external transportation capabilities, customer returns, and finance teams. We obsess about our end-to-end supply chain to make it efficient, drive out defects for our customers, and continuously reduce waste from processes. Our overall mission is simple: we strive towards reaching zero defects across our end-to-end operations.
Key job responsibilities
As the Principal for Defects Reduction, you will establish and drive large program initiatives across Amazon's European Operations. This role requires navigating highly complex, strategic scope across the end-to-end supply chain, understanding core operational activities, exposing defects and inefficiencies, surfacing tradeoffs between cost, customer experience, growth, and long-term profitability.
Collaborating closely with teams across EU Operations, including GCF, ATS, AMZL, and GTS, you will jointly identify and propose targets and levers to reduce the operational defects in our network. Your key focus will be to foster a unified, cross-functional approach, where teams work towards the optimal defect reduction aim. Navigating the conflicting priorities and trade-offs, you will play a crucial role in breaking down silos and facilitating a holistic, data-driven decision-making process.
The successful candidate will be a self-starter, comfortable with ambiguity, with strong attention to detail, an ability to work in an ever-changing environment.
This role includes a balanced mix of stakeholder/program management (70%) and analytical activities (30%)
Key job responsibilities
• Scope, create, and drive project plans.
• Communicate to Senior Management on status, risks and process/product changes.
• Manage full life cycle of complex cross-functional programs with considerable impact across multiple organizations.
• Develop the overall program strategy, tactically driving teams in and outside of your organization to deliver.
• Define the overall program (mission, vision, tenets), set objectives, analyze data and drive improvements that are quantified with metrics.
• Work autonomously in an ambiguous environment, seeking to understand business problems, automation limitations, scaling factors, boundary conditions and reasons behind leadership decisions.
• Oversee and eliminate gaps between teams, processes and systems.
• Proactively identify and mitigate risks before they become roadblocks.
• Work with program managers, business leaders and executive team to communicate and impact critical business initiatives.
• Develop, implement, and govern KPI reporting for a portfolio of programs, providing visibility to the milestones, and performance across all projects.
• Engage other Amazon business units globally to share best practices and improve end to end outcomes for Amazon customers.
A day in the life
- Work with fulfillment centers, transportation, finance, and retail teams across the world, to assess impactful defects, define and implement short and long-term improvement plans
- Coordinate the setting and propagation of targets for defects and cost reduction across the organization
- Collaborate with stakeholders across business and finance teams to develop plans for achieving these targets, securing necessary investments and technology commitments, and identifying key risks and opportunities
- Ensure smooth coordination and coherence between teams across the various organizations, managing timelines, meeting sequences, and aligning narratives
- Own the business documents and plans presented at the COO-level (multiple times a year), as well as all the intermediate materials leading up to these plans (VP and Director level documents)
- Work closely with ops and finance experts to combine and transform the plans into a set of network KPIs, ensuring we accurately reflected them in the financial models (P&L, cash flow, mix/rate)
About the team
Defects Reduction team works across operations, from inbound, fulfillment, transportation, to customer returns, and finance. We help drive defects reduction initiatives, balancing between customer experience, cost and operational process efficiency. The team has a large scope of impact and regularly interacts with leadership multiple levels above.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelor's degree in supply chain, business, engineering, finance or related technical or quantitative field
- Experience in program or project management
- Knowledge of Excel at an intermediate level (e.g., pivot tables & charts, multiple criteria lookups, nested logical/IF formulas, data cleansing, array formulas, etc.)
- Experience owning program strategy, end-to-end delivery, and communicating results to senior leadership
- Experience working cross functionally with tech and non-tech teams
- Experience defining program requirements and using data and metrics to determine improvements
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Master's degree in supply chain, business, engineering, finance or related technical or quantitative field
- Basic knowledge of SQL, Excel Macros, Tableau and other data visualization tools.
- Knowledge and certification for Operational Excellence / Continuous Improvement (Lean Six Sigma)
- Familiarity with supply chain management concepts - forecasting, planning, optimization, logistics gained through work experience or graduate level education.
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