Technical Program Product Manager III

PDS Inc.; Wilmington (MA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

PDSINC, LLC is seeking a Technical Program Manager to bring structure, visibility, and clarity to a fast-moving manufacturing engineering organization. This is a floor-present, hands-on role—unblocking problems by showing up at desks and on the production floor with engineers and operators.

You will migrate tracking into Jira, create dashboards and databases, draft SOPs, and drive the program cadence with leadership to ensure commitments are aligned across manufacturing, supply chain, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Technical Communication, Business, or equivalent.
• 3+ years of experience in a technical program management or project coordination role in hardware/manufacturing environment.
• Proficiency in Jira—including project configuration, workflow design, dashboards, and JQL.

Responsibilities

• Migrate existing Excel-based tracking to Jira with designed structures and dashboards.
• Connect program data across tools (Jira, Quickbase, Excel, dashboards) to create a single source of truth.
• Create real-time dashboards for program status, build readiness, and risk management for managers and leaders.
• Draft and maintain SOPs, build procedures, process docs, and program status updates.
• Be physically present on the floor to identify blockers and resolve them in person.

Skills

Jira proficiency

Excel proficiency

Google Sheets

Technical writing

Floor presence

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering or related field

Tools

Jira

Quickbase

Databases

Job description

We are seeking a Technical Program Manager to bring structure, visibility, and clarity to a fast-moving manufacturing engineering organization. Tactically, you’ll keep us on-track for our short term and long term commitments as a team. This is a floor-present, hands-on role — you unblock problems by showing up at desks and on the production floor, not by sending Slack messages to check in. Strategically, you’ll partner with Manufacturing leadership to formalize operational systems that keep the team aligned — migrating spreadsheet-based tracking into well-organized, scalable tooling (Jira, dashboards, databases), drafting technical documentation, and driving the program cadence that ensures nothing falls through the cracks.

Key Job Responsibilities

• Migrate existing Excel-based tracking systems into Jira — design project structures, workflows, issue types, and dashboards that match how the engineering team actually works. Make the tools serve the team, not the other way around.
• Connect program data across tools — Jira, Quickbase or similar databases, Excel, dashboards — to create a single-source-of-truth system for program tracking, material readiness, build status, and risk management.
• Create and maintain dashboards that give real-time visibility into program status, build readiness, material risk, open actions, and key milestones — designed for engineering managers and senior leadership to consume without a walkthrough.
• Draft and maintain technical documentation under engineering leadership direction — SOPs, build procedures, process documents, lessons‑learned reports, decision logs, and program status updates. You produce the polished output alongside the vision of engineering leadership.
• Be physically present — walk the floor, sit with engineers, attend builds. Identify blockers firsthand and help resolve them in person. Status updates should come from what you've seen, fixed and heard, not from pinging people on Slack.
• Ensure meetings produce outcomes — facilitate key reviews, capture decisions and action items, and drive follow-through. Keep the team's commitments visible and on track.
• Track and drive cross-functional action items to closure — when items are stuck, go find out why in person. Provide visibility into what's open and what's at risk across engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, and quality.
• Identify opportunities to automate or streamline recurring reporting, status collection, and data aggregation. If you're copy‑pasting the same data into three places, fix it.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Technical Communication, Business, or equivalent discipline.
• 3+ years of experience in a technical program management or project coordination role in a hardware, manufacturing, or engineering environment.
• Proficiency in Jira — including project configuration, workflow design, custom fields, dashboards, and JQL. Not just a user; someone who can set up and administer projects.
• Experience migrating unstructured or spreadsheet-based tracking into structured project management tools.
• Strong technical writing and drafting skills — ability to take direction from engineering leadership and produce clear, concise documentation for both technical and executive audiences. Comfortable drafting SOPs, process docs, decision logs, and program status reports.
• Proficiency in Excel / Google Sheets for data analysis, pivot tables, and reporting.
• Basic proficiency with databases (Quickbase or similar) — comfortable navigating, querying, and building simple reports and views.
• Comfortable in a manufacturing environment — willing to be on the floor daily, sit with engineers, and engage directly with operators and technicians to understand what's working and what's blocked.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a hardware NPI or manufacturing environment — familiarity with build schedules, BOM tracking, material readiness, and engineering change processes
• Familiarity with dashboard/visualization tools (QuickSight, Tableau, Power BI)
• Experience supporting cross-functional programs with engineering, supply chain, quality, and manufacturing stakeholders

Compensation: $80

PDSINC, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer.