Jesse Smith

Jesse Smith has a long and varied career in engineering and product development. In 2001, they began their career at Caterpillar Inc. as a Design Engineer, where they designed and maintained diesel engine fuel injectors for MEUI (Mechanical Electronic Unit Injector) systems. Jesse was then promoted to Senior Design Engineer, where they were accountable for the design and validation of hydraulic cylinders for Caterpillar machines, as well as introducing a position sensing hydraulic cylinder technology utilized for steering and GPS enabled automatic grading features. In 2014, they moved to Caterpillar Financial Services Corporation as an Underwriting Manager, where they led the underwriting team and was accountable for portfolio profitability, pricing development, new program development, growth initiatives and team talent identification and development. In 2017, they moved to Tesla as a Staff Technical Program Manager, where they managed a Technical Program Management team of up to 13 people for the Powertrain NPI organization. In 2019, they moved to FloWater as the Director Of Product Development. Currently, they are the Director, Technical Program Management at Outrider, where they are building and coaching a Technical Program Management team to support a 130+ engineering team in the development of an autonomous vehicle with complex integrated hardware, software and robotic systems. Jesse'srole includes technical roadmap development and execution, including process and structure for leadership updates, risk management and metric reporting, as well as integration of engineering development plans with wider cross functional organization including Product, Supply Chain, Assembly Operations, HR, Finance and Marketing.

Jesse Smith graduated from Marquette University in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Jesse then attended Lewis University and obtained a Masters in Business Administration in 2005.