Technical Project Manager

JOB SUMMARY:
Responsible for coordinating the development, and subsequent production transfer of high-precision assemblies in Vietnam.
Initial development will be performed jointly by the Optical Solutions engineering team in the United States and the Engineered Ceramics R&D team, primarily located in Vietnam. The Technical Project Manager will coordinate local activities and ensure effective collaboration between the participating organizations.
The position requires a strong technical background and the ability to understand complex engineering topics. The Technical Project Manager is not expected to personally solve technical issues. Instead, the role will work with the responsible local and US engineers to define problems, establish ownership, understand technical and schedule risks, develop contingency plans, and drive issues to timely resolution.
The initial focus will be on coordinating product and process development. As the product and processes mature, the role will support industrialization, manufacturing transfer, process qualification, production readiness, and ramp-up in Vietnam.
The position reports to the Director of Engineering, Optical Solutions Vietnam, with a dotted-line relationship to the US-based Program Manager. A key objective of the role is to support the US-based Program Manager in successfully achieving the overall program objectives.
PRIMARY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
- Serve as the primary local project coordinator for the high-precision assembly program.
- Coordinate activities between the Optical Solutions engineering team in the United States, the Engineered Ceramics R&D team in Vietnam, and other cross-functional stakeholders.
- Support the US-based Program Manager in planning, coordinating, and executing the overall program.
- Develop and maintain detailed project plans covering scope, deliverables, schedules, milestones, resources, dependencies, costs, and risks.
- Help drive the project schedule and ensure key milestones are achieved in support of the overall program objectives.
- Track actions, deliverables, dependencies, and decisions, ensuring that owners and due dates are clearly defined.
- Organize and facilitate project meetings, technical reviews, risk reviews, and project gate reviews.
- Prepare meeting agendas, document decisions, issue meeting minutes, and follow up on assigned actions.
- Work with local and US engineers to understand technical issues, their root causes, and their potential effects on the program.
- Ensure technical issues are assigned to the appropriate engineering owners and driven to timely resolution.
- Identify and communicate technical, schedule, resource, supply-chain, quality, and manufacturing risks.
- Coordinate with the engineering teams to develop risk-mitigation measures, contingency plans, and schedule-recovery actions.
- Evaluate the potential program impact of technical issues and communicate it clearly to the US-based Program Manager and other stakeholders.
- Escalate unresolved issues, resource constraints, and decisions requiring management attention.
- Provide regular project updates to the Director of Engineering, Optical Solutions Vietnam, and the US-based Program Manager.
- Prepare clear and professional PowerPoint presentations for project reviews, management updates, customer discussions, and decision-making meetings.
- Collect, consolidate, and summarize technical, schedule, cost, quality, and risk information from the responsible functional teams.
- Develop project dashboards and reports covering schedule status, milestone achievement, risks, actions, resources, and overall program health.
- Coordinate prototype builds, engineering builds, design verification, process-development trials, and associated readiness reviews.
- Coordinate the availability of drawings, bills of materials, specifications, test plans, work instructions, inspection plans, and other required project documentation.
- Support coordination of equipment, tooling, fixtures, metrology systems, materials, suppliers, and facility requirements.
- Facilitate communication between engineering, operations, quality, supply chain, facilities, EHS, and other supporting functions.
- Support the development and execution of the industrialization and manufacturing-transfer plan as the product and processes mature.
- Coordinate process qualification, pilot production, production-readiness reviews, and the controlled ramp into manufacturing.
- Coordinate training and qualification activities for local engineers, technicians, and production personnel.
- Support the resolution of technical, quality, yield, and process issues during the initial production ramp by coordinating the appropriate engineering resources.
- Ensure project activities and deliverables comply with applicable customer, quality, cleanliness, ISO, and EHS requirements.