---
title: 'Sustaining Program Manager — Consumer at Mill'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/sustaining-program-manager-consumer-mill-san-bruno-c2byw478cwfr'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-04'
---

# Sustaining Program Manager — Consumer at Mill

- **Company:** Mill
- **Location:** San Bruno, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-08-17
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-04
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/mill/jobs/4724943005

## Job description

Mill is a waste prevention technology company reimagining what it means to eliminate waste, starting with food. We build smart systems and infrastructure for homes, businesses, and municipalities that transform food scraps from landfill-bound waste into valuable resources, including chicken feed. Tens of thousands of Mill’s residential food recyclers are already helping households divert millions of pounds of food scraps every year, paving the way for our upcoming launch of Mill Commercial—the industry’s first end-to-end solution for managing, understanding, and preventing food waste in commercial environments (e.g. grocery, restaurants, food services). At Mill, we are passionate about building easy-to-use, beautifully designed technologies that keep food in the food system and out of landfills.

## The Role

We are seeking an experienced Sustaining Program Manager to own the day-to-day program management of Mill's Consumer hardware line as it scales from launch into steady-state production. You will take ownership of our sustaining engineering and supply chain activities end to end, driving engineering changes, cost-down and alternate-supply qualification, and daily execution with our contract manufacturers, while keeping engineering, quality, supply chain, retail, legal, and finance partners aligned. You will run our recurring Sustaining Core review, maintain our prioritized sustaining project list, and be the go-to person for program status, cost, and risk across our live Consumer products.

## Key Responsibilities

- Sustaining Program Ownership: Own end-to-end program management for our live Consumer products, running the recurring Sustaining Core review and maintaining a tiered priority list spanning launch-risk, supply-stability, and cost-down workstreams.
- Engineering Change Management: Drive ECOs from proposal through approval, requalification, and production cutover, coordinating timing with contract manufacturers to avoid disruption to in-flight builds and inventory.
- Contract Manufacturer & Supply Chain Oversight: Hold overall program accountability for CM and supplier execution, partnering closely with the Head of Manufacturing and Head of Supply Chain, who own the direct supplier relationship and day-to-day execution.
- Finance Partnership: Serve as the point of contact for Finance on the accuracy of COGS projections and actuals, proactively flagging and reconciling variances so cost models and financial forecasts stay current.
- End-of-Life & Inventory Risk Management: Lead end-of-life planning and decisions for sustaining SKUs, including dead-stock and excess-and-obsolete (E&O) inventory risk analysis, to inform product transition timing and minimize financial exposure.
- Cost-Down Leadership: Lead cost-down and alternate-supply qualification initiatives (materials, suppliers, tooling) cross-functionally with Engineering, Product, Marketing, and other partners, sequencing work against business priority and driving from idea to implementation.
- Cross-Functional Alignment & Risk Management: Serve as the central point of contact and overall owner across engineering, quality, manufacturing, supply chain, and finance, proactively surfacing risks and ensuring the right operational leads are driving them to resolution.
- Executive Reporting: Deliver clear, regular updates on program health, budget, and risk to leadership via our Consumer program reviews.

Required Qualifications

- 5+ years of program or operations program management experience in hardware, consumer electronics, or appliances, including direct ownership of sustaining/post-launch programs.
- Proven experience managing contract manufacturers/EMS partners from mass production through end of life, including PO, pricing, and cost-variance management.
- Experience leading engineering change orders (ECOs) and coordinating their cross-functional approval and rollout.
- Strong cost and financial acumen, comfortable owning COGS tracking, budget variance, and cost-down initiatives.
- Excellent cross-functional communication skills, with experience running recurring program reviews and reporting program status to leadership.
- Ability to prioritize and sequence a broad portfolio of concurrent sustaining projects under resource constraints.
- Ability to travel domestically and internationally (including Mexico/Asia) to support build events as needed.

## Preferred Qualifications

- Technical background in mechanical engineering, with familiarity with manufacturing processes such as metal stamping, injection molding, or tooling qualification.
- Spanish fluency and experience working with Mexico-based suppliers. Or Chinese fluency and experience with Asian suppliers.
- Experience with kitchen, thermal, or other consumer appliances.

Education & Experience

- BS degree desired (Engineering, Operations, or related field); MS or MBA a plus.

Why Join Us?

This is an opportunity to own a critical, highly visible function at a fast-growing hardware company — keeping our Consumer products running smoothly for the customers who already rely on them, while helping build the sustaining processes that will scale as our portfolio grows. If you thrive on solving cost, supply, and cross-functional puzzles in a fast-paced environment, we encourage you to apply.

The estimated base salary range for this position is $185k to $210k, which does not include the value of benefits or a potential equity grant. A wide range of factors are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to skill sets, market conditions, experience and training, licensure and certifications, and business and organizational needs. At Mill, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role.

## About Mill

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Mill makes it easy to keep food out of landfills with innovative, odorless food recycling solutions for homes, workplaces, and cities.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C)
- **Headquarters**: San Bruno, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2020
- **Founders**: Not publicly available (founded by a team from Nest Labs / Google, though specific names are not widely publicized)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Environmental Services / Consumer Hardware & Software
- Target customers: B2C (homeowners), B2B (grocery and food service partners via Mill Commercial)
- Mission: To eliminate waste for good, starting with the food that ends up in landfills. The goal is to turn kitchen scraps into food for chickens, keeping food in the food system and out of landfills.

## Products & Services
- **Mill Food Recycler (Home)**: An odorless, effortless food recycling bin for the home. It uses intelligent tech to dehydrate and reduce food volume by 80% overnight. Users do not need to press a button; the device senses how much is added. The resulting grounds are shipped to Mill's small-farm partners for use as chicken feed. Type: Consumer Hardware + Service (subscription).
- **Mill Commercial**: A new solution for grocery stores and food service businesses to manage food waste at scale, leveraging the same core technology. Type: B2B Hardware + Service.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $170.8M across 6 rounds [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)
- **Key Metric**: 21,000,000+ pounds of food kept out of landfills [mill.com](https://www.mill.com/)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Prelude Ventures (led Series C), Climate Pledge Fund (Amazon), and others [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)
- **Growth Signals**: 110 total employees [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill) (LinkedIn reports 548, likely including contractors/partners) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill); 14 active job postings as of mid-2026; launch of Mill Commercial; headcount growth of +0.4% monthly [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Hardware + Software Moat**: The combination of a custom hardware appliance, embedded firmware, and a computer vision AI engine creates a difficult-to-replicate system.
- **Network Effect**: The more users Mill has, the more food waste is diverted, strengthening their supply chain of grounds for chicken feed and their partnerships with farms.
- **Brand & Design**: A strong focus on industrial design and user experience (odorless, effortless, beautiful) differentiates it from compost pails and garbage disposals.
- **Climate Impact**: Directly addresses methane emissions from landfills (methane is 80x more potent than CO2), giving it a strong mission-driven narrative.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling the Home Business**: Expanding the subscriber base for the home food recycler.
- **Launching Mill Commercial**: Entering the B2B market with grocery and food service partners to capture waste upstream.
- **International Expansion**: Likely future focus, given the global scale of food waste.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven**: Employees are directly working on climate change, keeping food out of landfills.
- **Hybrid Work**: Hybrid work environment (typical time on-site: 2 days a week) [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill).
- **Culture**: Described as a mix of hardware, software, and AI engineering with a startup feel. Offers company equity, 401(K), generous parental leave, free snacks, and company-sponsored family events [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill).
- **Engineering Focus**: Heavy investment in hardware engineering (San Bruno) and software/AI (Computer Vision). Roles include Hardware Test Engineer, Senior Firmware Engineer, AI Engineer (Computer Vision), and Product Design Engineer [greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/Mill).
- **Employee Rating**: 3.4/5.0 on LinkedIn (23 reviews), with Culture rated 3.7 and Compensation rated 3.6 [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill).

## Sources
1. [mill.com](https://www.mill.com/)
2. [greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/Mill)
3. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/mill)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/mill)

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