Lead TPM, New Business Enablement & RFP

connect; Secaucus (NJ); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

connect seeks a Lead Technical Program Manager for New Business Enablement & RFP to act as the operational solution architect within Global Operations Readiness. You will model complete scopes—footprint, capabilities, manpower, and financials—to support new customer opportunities and drive tailored manufacturing solutions.

You will lead multi-site solution engineering with teams in Texas, New Jersey, and the Netherlands, coaching junior members and promoting analytical rigor while guiding RFP

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in industrial, mechanical, systems engineering, or related field; MBA/MS preferred.
• 8+ years in engineering, technical program management, or manufacturing operations (or 6+ with master’s).
• Experience with high-reliability hardware manufacturing or hyperscale cloud infrastructure.
• Ability to model operational scope, capacity, and financial trade-offs for proposals.

Responsibilities

• Ingest projects end-to-end, define business needs, and socialize insights with leadership.
• Capture RFP intake and governance for hyperscale cloud opportunities and partner streams.
• Develop boundary condition models: footprint, line rates, power, cooling, test load, and lead-time.
• Quantify resource requirements: facility space, CapEx, labor, and P&L impacts.
• Lead cross-site solution engineering with teams in TX, NJ, and the Netherlands.
• Refine commercial ideas, generate hypotheses, and analyze manufacturing data for RFP responses.
• Develop analytical and financial frameworks to evaluate cost drivers and pricing decisions.
• Lead and mentor junior team members; drive engineering excellence and learning.

Skills

Analytical thinking

Problem solving

Communication

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering

Master's degree preferred

Tools

SQL

Python

Tableau

Power BI

Job description

About The Role

The Lead Technical Program Manager, New Business Enablement & RFP serves as the operational solution architect within the Global Operations Readiness (GOR) team. Reporting into the Manager of Global Operations Readiness within the Manufacturing Business Office (MBO), this role is responsible for framing the boundary conditions that support new customer opportunities and driving the development of tailored manufacturing solutions. This role bridges commercial expansion and factory capability.

You will lead the New Business Enablement & RFP sub-function in establishing a standardized framework to ingest and evaluate complex RFPs across direct ZT hyperscale channels and Sanmina partner sales streams. Rather than evaluating requests in isolation, you will model and quantify the complete operational scope required to support incoming opportunities-defining footprint, technical capabilities, manpower, and financial terms so that the true scope of business is fully understood before commitments are made.

Working hand-in-hand with local engineering and plant leadership across TX, NJ, and the Netherlands, you will establish the operational framework within which site-specific solutions are engineered. As technical leader, you will serve as the team's technical navigator-instilling analytical rigor, guiding multi-site solution engineering, and coaching junior team members to cultivate engineering excellence.

What You Will Do

• Ingest projects and requests from end-to-end, defining business needs, developing strategies, and socializing operational insights and RFP evaluations with executive leadership and business planning teams.
• Manage the multi-channel RFP intake and governance framework, establishing standardized workflows to evaluate direct hyperscale cloud opportunities and co-developed business pipelines.
• Develop and maintain operational boundary condition and constraint models, analyzing required footprint, line rates, high-density power, liquid cooling capabilities, test load capacity, and lead-time sensitivities.
• Quantify total operational resource requirements for new business opportunities, translating customer specifications into structured models detailing facility space, capital expenditures (CapEx), labor/manpower, and P&L financial impacts.
• Lead cross-site solution engineering efforts, partnering directly with local operational and engineering teams in Texas, New Jersey, and the Netherlands to architect feasible, high-integrity manufacturing solutions.
• Act as a thought partner and subject matter expert to refine commercial ideas, generate hypotheses, and analyze manufacturing data to formulate competitive RFP responses.
• Lead analytical workstreams-developing strategic, analytical, and financial frameworks to evaluate cost drivers, promote performance transparency, and guide cost-conscious decision-making for pricing and business planning teams.
• Demonstrate strong leadership and influence management skills, challenging the status quo and aligning diverse stakeholders across commercial sales, regional plant management, product operations, and contract manufacturing partners.
• Serve as the focal point for engineering and operational feasibility, representing factory capabilities during early customer engagement and formal RFP response cycles.
• Own efforts in continuously improving the effectiveness and scope of RFP evaluation tools, boundary-condition models, and response frameworks.
• Coach and nurture junior team members to maximize their potential, set direction in the execution of complex technical initiatives, and facilitate a culture of continuous learning and growth.
• Operate with a sense of urgency to ensure customer needs are met in fast-moving, high-pressure environments.

What You Bring

• The right person for this role is an agent of change and has exceptional analytical capabilities, thrives in a fast-paced environment, loves problem-solving, is a good communicator, and is passionate about enabling the future of cloud computing.
• Bachelor's degree in industrial engineering, mechanical engineering, systems engineering, supply chain management, or related field. Master's degree or MBA preferred.
• 8+ years of relevant experience in an engineering, technical program management, manufacturing operations, or technical solutions architecture role (or 6+ years with a Master's degree).
• Demonstrated experience in high-reliability hardware manufacturing, server assembly, contract manufacturing (EMS/ODM), or hyperscale cloud infrastructure environments.
• Proven track record of modeling operational scope, capacity limits, facility footprint constraints, and financial trade-offs for new customer proposals.
• Experience collaborating across geographically distributed manufacturing campuses (US and international) and working alongside customer-facing or partner commercial groups.
• Proficiency with structured problem-solving and analytical methods using tools such as SQL, Python, Tableau, Power BI, or advan