Senior Project Manager / Transformation Lead

MXP; Graz; On-site; EUR 52,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

MXP (MarineXchange) is redefining how projects are run. You will design the project management function, own standards and templates, and coach teams to adopt them.

You will personally lead our most complex customer implementations and cross‑module programmes, aligning stakeholders and external partners to a single delivery rhythm. You will own the PMO, provide a consolidated portfolio view, and drive the Grow transformation programme to closure, reporting progress to the leadership group every

Qualifications

• Eight or more years leading project/programme management in software/tech firms.
• Experience running a PMO or transformation programme with portfolio view.
• Proven ability to define and roll out project management standards.

Responsibilities

• Define the MXP project management standard and templates.
• Establish SOPs for customer implementations, internal projects, and modules.
• Lead the PMO, portfolio view, and transformation delivery end-to-end.
• Train and coach across the organisation and run quality reviews.
• Directly lead the most critical projects and manage external partners.

Skills

Eight+ years PMO expr

Training & coaching

Stakeholder management

Portfolio management

Fluent English

Education

PM certifications (PMP/PRINCE2/IPMA)

Tools

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.

MXP is in the middle of a deliberate step change: from an company that grew on expertise, to a professionally managed one with clear standards, measurable delivery and a management system the leadership team runs on. Building a professional project management function that enables the transformation is one of the first and most visible parts of that change.

Purpose of the role

You define how projects are run at MXP — the standards, methods and templates — and then make them stick across the organisation, by training and coaching the people who run projects rather than by issuing rules. In parallel you personally lead our most demanding projects, so the standard is proven in practice by the person who defined it.

This is a build role with a clear mandate from the CEO, not a role that inherits a running machine. You will have the freedom to design the function and the responsibility to make it work.

You also lead the PMO itself. The portfolio view across everything MXP has running — customer implementations, internal core projects and module enhancements — sits on your desk, and so does delivery of the GROW transformation programme: its core projects are driven to closure by you and your team, not merely reported on.

Key responsibilities

Standards and method — own them

• Define the MXP project management standard: lifecycle, phases, decision gates, roles, artefacts and templates — proportionate to a company of our size, not a corporate manual nobody opens.
• Establish project SOPs for the three project types we run: customer implementations, internal core projects, and larger module enhancements.
• Integrate the standard with our existing enhancement and release process (ticket → business requirements document → decision → quote → development → test → release) rather than building something alongside it.
• Define resource and capacity planning across modules, and the project reporting that feeds the management dashboard.

Deployment and enablement — make them stick

• Train and coach module owners, project leads and the wider organisation in the standard: structured sessions, on-the-job coaching, and the example of visibly well-run projects.
• Establish a practical quality bar for who may lead which class of project, and develop people towards it.
• Run project quality reviews and health checks, giving feedback that improves the next project rather than documenting the last one.
• Act as the internal reference point for project management questions across the company.

Delivery - lead from the front

• Personally lead the most critical and complex projects: major customer implementations, cross-module programmes and transformation workstreams.
• Steer projects across module boundaries and across our external development partners.
• Escalate early and with a recommendation — surface problems while they are still cheap.

Portfolio and programme — lead the PMO

• Lead the PMO as a function: its mandate, its standards, its people and its standing in the organisation.
• Own the portfolio view — one consolidated, current picture of every core project MXP is running, with status, risk, resource load and interdependencies.
• Own delivery of the transformation programme: its core projects run over your table and are driven through to closure, each with an owner, a criterion and a date.
• Run the programme steering rhythm so that slippage, blockers and resource conflicts across the portfolio surface early and get decided rather than collected.
• Feed the portfolio and programme picture into the management dashboard and the monthly management routine, so the leadership group steers on one view.

Transformation

• Together with the CEO, lead the transformation programme end to end the, and personally run its most critical workstreams.
• Drive the transparency measures into daily practice
• Contribute to the monthly management routine and the reporting the leadership group runs on.

What success looks like after twelve months

• One documented project standard is genuinely in use across all live key projects — not a document, a practice.
• Every project lead at MXP has been trained on it, and project quality reviews show measurable improvement.
• Customer implementations run to plan with predictable milestones, and slippage becomes visible weeks earlier than it does today.
• Project budget adherence, delivery reliability and utilisation are figures the leadership group sees every month.
• The leadership group works from a single portfolio picture it trusts, and the transformation is demonstrably moving rather than merely being reported.
• The project management / transformation function is staffed and capable, and no longer depends on any single person — including you.

What you bring

• Eight or more years in project and programme management in software, IT or technology-driven companies, including complex B2B implementation projects.
• Experience leading a PMO, a project portfolio or a transformation programme office — you have owned a portfolio view and a programme plan, not only individual projects.
• Demonstrable experience defining and rolling out project management standards in an organisation — not only applying standards someone else designed.
• Strong training, coaching and facilitation skills. You can hold a room of experienced, skeptical specialists and leave it with agreement rather than compliance.
• Fluency in recognized methods (traditional, agile and hybrid models) combined with the judgement to apply the lightest one that works.
• Financial literacy: project budgets, forecasts, utilization and margin are part of how you steer, not something you hand to finance.
• Experience managing external development
• Fluent English, written and spoken
• Background in cruise, maritime, hospitality or travel technology.
• Experience in a scale-up or owner-led company making the step to professional management — you know that the hard part is adoption, not design.
• Certification such as PMP, PRINCE2 Practitioner or IPMA Level B/C — useful, but not a substitute for a track record.

How you work

• You deliver rather than describe. You are comfortable in the detail of a plan in the morning and in front of the leadership group in the afternoon.
• You have the standing to hold experienced module owners to an agreed process, without it becoming personal.
• You prefer a standard that is used over standards that are merely complete.
• You are patient with people and impatient with drift.

CEO (direct report), CTO, CFO, module owners across the product portfolio, quality assurance and release management, our external development partners, and the customer-facing organisation. You will also work closely with your yet-to-build-team, that applies the standard in day-to-day implementation delivery.

Why this role is worth taking

Few companies of this size give one person the mandate to design how projects are run and the authority to make it happen. MXP has a strong product, a market-leading position in a specialised industry, and a leadership team that has decided to professionalise and grow further. What is missing is the discipline layer — and that is exactly this role. The work is visible, the impact is measurable, and the sponsor is the CEO.

• 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 € 4.476.- 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.