Role Summary

The Rivian Supply Chain team is looking for highly motivated technical professionals to drive value through expert cost analysis. As a Senior Cost Engineer, you will serve as a key individual contributor responsible for independently managing the cost analysis of assigned commodities. You will integrate data from various sources to create defensible estimates that directly influence sourcing decisions, design trade-offs, and supplier negotiations.

In this role, you will drive results by building compelling business cases that persuade stakeholders to adopt cost-optimized strategies. You are expected to demonstrate advanced proficiency in cost-modeling tools and take ownership of improving team processes. This role offers the opportunity to influence decision-making by presenting logical, data-driven insights in cross-functional forums.

This position is based onsite in Irvine and reports to the Electrical Cost Engineering Manager.

Responsibilities

• Knowledge Base: Independently applies manufacturing principles and maintains a working knowledge of material properties, key manufacturing processes, and cost drivers without frequent guidance.
• Presentation & Storytelling: Builds and presents a compelling business case to explain component cost analysis and persuade stakeholders to use the output to generate financial opportunities.
• Technical Skills: Demonstrates advanced usage of aPriori and/or Costdata, autonomously modifying cost estimate process setups and options while leveraging the full toolchain (PLM, CATIA, etc.).
• Organizational Influence & Outreach: Advises outcomes to direct counterparts and uses data-driven insights to directly influence the work of peers.
• Direction: Manages day-to-day responsibilities and assigned projects with minimal guidance, identifying and managing personal priorities in urgent situations.

Qualifications

• Education and Experience: Bachelor's degree in Engineering or related field and a minimum of 3 years of relevant experience.
• Domain Expertise: Understands how their work informs sourcing decisions, design trade-offs, and supplier negotiations, providing foundational data-driven input to cross-functional teams.
• Commodity-Specific Experience:
• PCBAs and Electromechanical Assemblies
• Sensors
• Switches
• Thermal Control (cooling tubes, manifolds)
• ECUs
• Technical Skills: Advanced user of various systems with the ability to conduct larger-scale gap analysis to identify focus areas and outliers.
• Communication: Confidently fields questions from peers and is learning to tailor their communication style to different audiences.
• Execution: Proactively communicates issues that have an impact outside of Cost Engineering, flagging risks and opportunities to the relevant teams.
• Operational Style: Consistently uses first principles to drive change and responds actively to feedback from senior team members to close skill gaps.
• Travel Requirements: Ability and willingness to travel as needed based on business needs, expected to average up to 10%.

Pay Disclosure

The salary range for this role is $107,800 - $134,800 for Irvine, California based applicants . This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.

The successful candidate may be eligible for annual performance bonus and equity awards.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits including life, medical, dental, vision, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance to eligible employees. You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian's 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Full-time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part-time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at rivianbenefits.com.

You can apply for this role through careers.rivian.com (or through internal-careers-rivian.icims.com if you are a current employee). This job is not expected to be closed any sooner than August 31, 2026.

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.