Principal Technical Program Manager, New Product Development

Tract Capital Management, LP•Austin, TX

6d•$150,000 - $200,000

About The Position

The Principal Technical Program Manager, New Product Development leads the most complex and business-critical product development programs supporting data center infrastructure. The role partners with Product Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Construction, Commissioning, and Operations to guide products from concept through design, validation, pilot, launch, and scaled production, while shaping the operating model used across programs. The role owns integrated program strategy, executive-level governance, schedules, risks, dependencies, and decision frameworks to deliver high-quality, manufacturable products aligned with performance, cost, safety, and timeline objectives. It ensures teams are aligned, technical and operational issues are surfaced early, and execution remains disciplined across internal stakeholders and external partners. The position defines manufacturing strategies and roadmaps; establishes manufacturing methods, tooling, test systems, and production flows; leads industrialization and production scale-up; and builds production systems that meet throughput, cycle-time, labor-efficiency, and capacity targets. It also sets quality strategies, drives continuous improvement, develops workforce training and operating procedures, and leads external manufacturing and automation partners. The role provides executive recommendations on manufacturing investments, risks, sourcing, and scaling opportunities. Travel to manufacturing facilities, supplier sites, test labs, and deployment locations is required.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations, or a related field.
10+ years of manufacturing, operations, industrialization, or advanced manufacturing experience.
5+ years leading manufacturing strategy, process development, or production scale-up for complex hardware products.
Proven experience with manufacturing footprint decisions, automation strategies, contract manufacturing, OEM partnerships, and production system design.
Track record of improving quality, throughput, capacity, and on-time delivery.
Experience launching products from prototype or pilot production into volume manufacturing.
Required travel to manufacturing facilities, supplier sites, test labs, and deployment locations.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree in Engineering, Manufacturing, Operations, or Business.
Experience with data center infrastructure, thermal systems, liquid cooling, HVAC, power distribution, or mission-critical equipment.
Experience implementing robotics, automation, and advanced manufacturing technologies.
Knowledge of global manufacturing strategies, supply-chain risk management, and multi-site production scaling.
Experience in highly regulated, safety-critical, or uptime-sensitive environments.

Responsibilities

Define end-to-end manufacturing strategy, including make-versus-buy decisions, manufacturing footprint, partner selection, capacity planning, and regional deployment strategy.
Evaluate tradeoffs involving cost, quality, lead time, logistics, supply-chain risk, automation opportunities, and customer requirements.
Develop manufacturing roadmaps for new product introduction, production ramp-up, and long-term scaling.
Establish manufacturing methods, tooling, fixtures, test systems, production flows, and equipment strategies.
Lead adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies, including robotics, automation, machine vision, digital work instructions, and data-driven process controls.
Partner with engineering teams to ensure products are designed for manufacturability, testability, serviceability, and production scale.
Build production systems that achieve throughput, cycle-time, labor-efficiency, and capacity targets.
Lead pilot builds, process validation, production readiness, staffing plans, and transitions to volume production.
Implement KPIs and dashboards to monitor yields, schedule attainment, bottlenecks, and overall manufacturing performance.
Define manufacturing quality strategies, in-process controls, testing requirements, and acceptance criteria.
Lead root-cause analysis and corrective actions for manufacturing, supplier, and field quality issues.
Improve first-pass yield, reduce defects, increase process capability, and strengthen operational discipline.
Develop scalable training programs, work instructions, certification requirements, and operating procedures.
Lead relationships with contract manufacturers, OEMs, integrators, equipment suppliers, and automation partners.
Drive partner performance across quality, cost, capacity, responsiveness, and delivery metrics.
Serve as the manufacturing leader across Product Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality, Program Management, Operations, and Customer Delivery.
Provide executive-level recommendations on manufacturing investments, risks, sourcing strategies, and scaling opportunities.