Technical Project Manager

Productive Machines develops advanced industrial software that improves machining performance, productivity, and manufacturing decision-making in complex production environments.

Our physics-AI technologies sit at the intersection of software, AI, engineering, and real-world machining production, helping manufacturers unlock machining capacity, reduce cycle times, eliminate chatter vibration, and improve process stability across high-value manufacturing operations.

We are a growing deep-tech company working with industrial customers, machine tool partners, and manufacturing organisations where projects must deliver measurable impact on the shop floor.

As we scale, we are looking for a Technical Project Manager to help coordinate and deliver a mix of:

• customer-facing industrial pilot projects
• collaborative R&D programmes involving industrial and academic partners
• complex internal software and product delivery programmes

This is a hands-on, high-visibility role suited to someone who enjoys operating in fast-moving technical start-up environments and helping bring structure, momentum, and delivery focus across multidisciplinary teams.

The Role

You will act as a central coordination point across software engineering, product development, customers, manufacturing partners, and commercial teams. The role combines:

• technical project delivery
• customer coordination
• operational organisation
• stakeholder management

within a scaling industrial software business.

This is not a purely administrative PM role.

Key Responsibilities

Project Delivery

• Coordinate internal software and product development projects across engineering and product teams.
• Manage customer-facing pilot projects, onboarding activities, software deployments, and technical integrations.
• Support delivery of Innovate UK and other collaborative R&D projects involving external partners.
• Define and track project scope, timelines, milestones, risks, budgets, and dependencies.
• Ensure projects remain aligned to delivery priorities, defined budgets, and commercial objectives.

Customer & Stakeholder Coordination

• Act as a key interface between engineering, product, commercial teams, customers, and external partners.
• Run project meetings, planning sessions, delivery reviews, and progress updates.
• Ensure customer expectations are managed clearly and professionally.
• Support management reporting and project status visibility.

Manufacturing & Technical Environment

• Work closely with customers operating CNC machining and manufacturing environments.
• Develop an understanding of machining workflows, CAM software, production constraints, and industrial customer requirements.
• Help translate technical and operational requirements into structured project plans and actionable tasks.

Process & Operational Improvement

• Help improve project management processes, reporting, introduction of standards and tools, and delivery coordination as the company scales.
• Ensure documentation, actions, decisions, and lessons learned are captured effectively.
• Support prioritisation and coordination across multiple concurrent internal and external projects, including roadmap development.

Requirements

Required Experience & Skills

• Proven senior-level experience in managing technical, software, engineering, or industrial projects.
• Proven experience coordinating both internal and customer-facing projects.
• Comfortable working with technical engineering teams and external customer technical and senior-level stakeholders.
• Eligible to work in the UK.
• Live within commuting distance of the AMP Centre, Rotherham.

Highly Desirable

• Experience within manufacturing, machining, industrial automation, engineering software, or Industry 4.0 environments.
• Familiarity with CNC machining, CAM systems, or production operations.
• Experience working with industrial software or technical products.
• Experience supporting grant-funded or collaborative R&D projects.
• Familiarity with Agile workflows and tools such as Jira, Confluence, or Bitbucket.
• Formal PM qualifications (PRINCE2, Agile, PMP, Scrum, etc.) beneficial but not essential.

Benefits

What We Offer

• Options for the right candidate, dependent on experience.
• Opportunity to work at the forefront of AI-driven industrial technology
• High-impact role within a growing deep-tech company
• Exposure to advanced manufacturing and cutting-edge industrial software
• Collaborative engineering-led culture with significant ownership and visibility
• Private medical insurance, life assurance, and contributory pension scheme
• Flexible working arrangements where appropriate