Project Manager Cruise

MXP; Graz; On-site; EUR 40,000 - 48,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Rapid professional growth

Stable long-term employment

Exciting and varied tasks

International team

Job summary

MXP (MarineXchange) is hiring to lead customer implementations end-to-end for cruise operators. You will manage multiple live projects, coordinating across modules, development teams, QA, release management and external partners.

Fluent English, 4–8 years in software/project implementations, and a strong grasp of delivery, risk and stakeholder management are essential; travel to ships is required.

Qualifications

• 4–8 years running software or IT implementation projects in a customer-facing role.
• Strong planning, dependency and risk management, stakeholder management and disciplined escalation.
• Working understanding of software delivery — releases, environments, testing, defect management.
• Cruise, maritime, hospitality or travel background to understand shipboard operations.
• Willingness to travel, including to ships.
• Fluent English, written and spoken.
• Hands-on experience with property management, POS or similar systems.
• Familiarity with issue-tracking and service portals (e.g. Jira).

Responsibilities

• Run customer implementation projects end to end: scope, plan, dependencies, risks, milestones, go-live and handover.
• Manage several projects in parallel without losing grip on any.
• Coordinate across module owners, development, QA, release management and external partners.
• Own the project plan and surface slippage early with options and recommendations.

Skills

Project management

Stakeholder management

Risk management

Software delivery understanding

Fluent English

Willingness to travel

Tools

Jira

Job description

MXP (MarineXchange) builds the software that runs cruise operations. Around 100 people develop and support a modular platform used by leading cruise lines — from property management and point of sale to itinerary planning, supply chain and port operations. Our customers run 24/7 operations at sea, which makes reliable delivery not a nice-to-have but the product itself.

We are building a professional management function, and this is one of its founding roles. You will help set the bar for how implementation projects are run in this industry.

Purpose of the role

You own our customer implementation projects end to end: cruise lines going live with our modules across their fleets, under real operational pressure and without the luxury of a hutdown window. Several such projects run in parallel at any time.

Key responsibilities

• Run customer implementation projects end to end: scope, plan, dependencies, risks, milestones, go-live and handover to service.
• Manage several projects in parallel without losing grip on any of them.
• Coordinate across module owners, development, quality assurance, release management and our external development partners.
• Own the project plan and keep it truthful. Surface slippage early, with options and a recommendation.

Customer

• Act as project counterpart to the customer's project organisation: planning, status, escalation and expectation management.
• Prepare and run customer steering meetings; document decisions with owner, criterion and date.
• Protect scope. Changes go through the enhancement process, not through corridor conversations.
• Build the kind of working relationship where a customer hears bad news from you early rather than discovering it late.

Standards in practice

• Apply the MXP project standard consistently and be its most visible working example.
• Support the Senior Project Manager in training and coaching module owners and project leads with regards to these standards
• Feed practical improvements back into the standard — you are the reality check on whether it works.
• Keep project data current so that reporting reflects reality without anyone chasing you.

Internal projects

• Take internal core projects and improvement initiatives alongside customer work, so the function contributes to MXP's own transformation as well as to customer delivery.

What success looks like after twelve months

• Your implementations meet agreed go-live dates — or the risk was visible early enough for the company to act.
• Customers describe your projects as predictable and well run, and say so without being asked.
• Your project data is complete enough that your projects appear correctly in the management dashboard with no chasing.
• You can run a project review for a colleague and measurably improve their project.

What you bring

• Four to eight years running software or IT implementation projects in a customer-facing role.
• Solid project management craft: planning, dependency and risk management, stakeholder management and disciplined escalation.
• A working understanding of software delivery — releases, environments, testing, defect management — deep enough to challenge an estimate and to understand a technical constraint without needing it translated.
• Cruise, maritime, hospitality or travel industry background: you understand shipboard operations, fleet rollouts, and why timing on a vessel is unlike timing anywhere else.
• Willingness to travel, including to ships.
• Fluent English, written and spoken.
• Hands‑on experience with property management, point of sale, or comparable operational systems.
• Familiarity with issue-tracking and service-portal environments (for example Jira and a customer support portal).

How you work

• You stay calm under parallel load and keep an accurate picture of all your projects, not just the loudest one.
• You are precise: a plan you publish is a plan you stand behind.
• You are direct with bad news and early with it.
• You can tell a customer no, give the reason, and keep the relationship.

Who you work with

Senior Project Manager / Transformation Lead (direct report), module owners across the product portfolio, development and external partners, quality assurance and release management, customer project managers and operational stakeholders, and our business development and service organisation.

Why this role is worth taking

This is implementation work with genuine domain depth: complex operational software, demanding customers, and a product that matters to the running of a ship. You join a project management function at the point where it is being built, which means influence over how it works rather than a process handed to you — and a direct path to leading larger programmes as the team grows.

• Rapid professional growth at the leading software supplier in the cruise industry
• Secure, long-term employment in a fast-growing industry
• A work environment with exciting and varied tasks
• A great working atmosphere in a highly motivated and successful team with international corporate culture

Austria: The minimum salary stipulated by the applicabel IT collective agreement is € 3.954.- gross per month

on a full-time employment (14 payments per year). Depending on your professional qualifications and experience, an overpayment is possible.

• International/Other Countries: For positions outside Austria, compensation is based on local market conditions and legal requirements.