Project Manager – New Product Development

Crane Nuclear; Kentucky; On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Crane Company. seeks a Project Manager to lead New Product Development initiatives from concept through launch, driving cross-functional collaboration and ensuring customer alignment throughout development and manufacturing.

You will interact with customers to gather requirements, provide updates, manage risk, and deliver on schedule and budget while guiding teams through stage-gate processes and adopting new technology.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, physics, chemistry, or related technical discipline.
• Ability to interpret data, identify trends, and solve problems efficiently.
• 5–10 years professional experience in a technical role.
• 3+ years leading New Product Development, engineering development, or technology commercialization projects.
• Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Proficiency with Jira and Microsoft Project.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook, Excel, Word, Loop, and PowerPoint.

Responsibilities

• Lead cross-functional teams through the NPD lifecycle, ensuring adherence to stage-gate requirements and effective risk management.
• Collaborate with customers and stakeholders to gather requirements and provide timely updates.
• Develop execution plans, drive issue resolution, and mitigate project risks.
• Support migration from legacy tools to modern cloud-based Agile platforms.
• Analyze project performance and ensure alignment with budgets and cash-flow objectives.
• Apply PMI, SAFe, and CBS practices to deliver customer value and business objectives.
• Mentor and coach teams to improve performance and efficiency.
• Consistently deliver on commitments to customers and stakeholders with high ethics and quality.

Skills

Leadership

Data interpretation

Communication

Stakeholder management

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering, physics, chemistry, or related technical discipline

Tools

Jira

Microsoft Project

SAP

Python

Job description

We are seeking a Project Manager with a passion for innovation and a strong foundation in Agile methodologies to lead New Product Development (NPD) initiatives. This role will drive cross-functional collaboration, manage project execution from concept through launch, and help shape the future of our product portfolio. A key part of this role involves direct interaction with customers to gather requirements, provide updates, and ensure alignment throughout the development and manufacturing process.

Responsibilities

• Lead cross-functional teams through the NPD lifecycle, ensuring adherence to stage-gate requirements, effective risk management, alignment with customer requirements, and successful commercialization of new products.

Customer & Stakeholder Relationship Management

• Proactively communicate effectively with customers and stakeholders to maintain alignment, build confidence, and foster mutually beneficial relationships.

Data Acumen, Analysis, and Presentation

• Develop and maintain datasets to understand the backlog of work, analyze progress, and present performance against schedule and budget to stakeholders.

Decision Making

• Develop execution plans, drive issue resolution, and mitigate project risks. Make decisions at the appropriate level of authority and adjust plans as new information becomes available while maintaining stakeholder alignment.

Adoption of New Technology

• Leverage existing and newly developed datasets to improve visibility, support decision-making, and drive successful project outcomes. Support migration from legacy tools to modern cloud-based Agile platforms.
• Analyze project and value-stream performance against approved business cases. Manage projects to meet budgets and support profit margin and cash flow objectives.

Process and Framework Expertise

• Apply PMI practices, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), and Crane Business Systems (CBS) to deliver customer value and achieve business objectives. Use professional communication to convey complex concepts to teams, customers, and stakeholders.

Growth Mindset and Change Agent

• Demonstrate a continuous improvement mindset by identifying opportunities to enhance organizational effectiveness through Agile, CBS, and traditional PMI approaches. Influence, coach, mentor, and teach others in ways that improve team performance and efficiency.

Ability to Coach and Motivate Teams

• Act as a servant leader to ensure team success. Maximize the benefits of Agile ceremonies, Agile principles, and Lean methodologies.

Closer

• Consistently deliver on commitments to customers and stakeholders while adhering to the highest standards of ethics, quality, integrity, and safety.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, physics, chemistry, or a related technical discipline.
• Ability to interpret data, identify trends, and solve problems efficiently.
• 5-10 years professional experience in technical role.
• 3+ years of experience leading New Product Development (NPD), engineering development, or technology commercialization projects in a technical environment.
• Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Proficiency with project management tools such as Jira and Microsoft Project.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook, Excel, Word, Loop, and PowerPoint.

Preferred Qualifications

• PMP, CSM, SAFe or other related certifications.
• Master’s degree in business, engineering, physics, or chemistry.
• Experience in nuclear, aerospace, medical, or other regulated capital-intensive industry.
• Knowledge of SAP business system.
• Knowledge of scripting and search languages such as Python, VBA, ABAP, or JQL.

#NUCLEAR

This description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work being performed by employees within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job.

Crane Company. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, general identity, national origin, disability or veteran status.