Technical Project Manager

Brightsmith; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Brightsmith is partnering with a fast-growing energy technology company in Austin to redefine reliable, scalable power. We are seeking an on-site hardware program manager who can own full lifecycle programs and align engineering with business goals.

You will manage plans, budgets, risk, design reviews, and supplier partnerships across engineering, manufacturing, procurement and EPC. You will build tracking infrastructure and remove bottlenecks to protect milestones.

Qualifications

• Full-lifecycle program ownership: concept through design, prototyping, qualification, and production ramp.
• Fluency in hardware realities: long-lead components, tolerances, test campaigns.
• Ability to translate technical work into business decisions.
• Experience building structure in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.

Responsibilities

• Owns program plans, milestones, budgets, and risk registers across hardware programs.
• Sits in design reviews and challenges tolerance stack-ups.
• Manages engineering, manufacturing, procurement, and EPC partners as one accountable system.
• Builds tracking infrastructure — Gantt charts, dashboards, daily check-ins — to keep programs honest.
• Sees bottlenecks early and clears them before milestones.
• Supports regulatory processes, audits, and qualification gates as needed.
• Translates between deep technical work and business decisions.

Skills

Program management

Cross-functional leadership

Design reviews

Budget management

Regulatory awareness

Education

Engineering degree — Mechanical, Systems, Electrical, or related

Job description

Brightsmith is partnered with a fast-growing energy technology company in Austin redefining how the world generates reliable, scalable power. At roughly 60 people and well-funded, this is a company at a formative stage: small enough that one person's ownership genuinely moves programs forward, serious enough that the engineering has to hold up to aerospace-grade scrutiny.

Responsibilities

• Owns program plans, milestones, budgets, and risk registers across one or more hardware programs
• Sits in design reviews and understands tolerance stack-ups well enough to challenge the engineering, not just track it
• Manages engineering, manufacturing, procurement, and EPC partners as one accountable system
• Builds the tracking infrastructure — Gantt charts, dashboards, daily check-ins — that keeps a hardware program honest
• Sees bottlenecks coming and clears them before they cost a milestone
• Supports regulatory processes, audits, and qualification gates where the program requires it
• Translates between deep technical work and the business decisions riding on it.

If your program management experience is mostly coordination and status reporting, this isn\'t that role. If you\'ve owned a hardware program through the parts no one wants to own — supply chain gaps, failed qual tests, a schedule that\'s slipping and needs a real decision — this is worth a conversation.

Qualifications

• Engineering degree — Mechanical, Systems, Electrical, or related
• A career built in hardware specifically: aerospace, defense, advanced manufacturing, robotics, automotive, or complex industrial equipment — not adjacent, not "technical" in the loose sense
• Full-lifecycle program ownership: concept through design, prototyping, qualification, and production ramp
• Fluency in the physical realities of hardware — long-lead components, manufacturing tolerances, test campaigns — not just program frameworks on a slide
• A track record of building structure in ambiguous, fast-moving environments, not waiting for it to exist
• The credibility to hold engineers, suppliers, and senior stakeholders to the same standard
• Austin-based, fully on-site
• Must be a U.S. citizen or Green Card holder — no visa sponsorship for this role