Technical Program Manager
Summary
An onsite Technical Program Manager in Milpitas, CA who bridges key-account customer engineering requirements with Advantech's embedded and industrial PC portfolio, coordinating engineering and product teams across the U.S., Taiwan, and China while managing multiple customer programs (~25% travel).
The successful candidate will demonstrate strong organizational and problem-solving skills, proactive communication, customer focus, and the ability to coordinate cross-functional teams across cultures and time zones. This role requires building effective working relationships with customer engineering, procurement, and project management teams.
- Customer Program Management, manage each assigned key account as a program, maintaining a consolidated view of active and planned projects, status, risks, and dependencies.
- Lead recurring customer meetings and periodic program reviews with customers and the KAM. Establish agendas, track action items, and drive timely resolution.
- Monitor program-level performance, including project schedules, dependencies, risks, and quality trends.
- Coordinate product lifecycle activities across customer installations, including end-of-life (EOL) notices, product change notifications (PCNs), component obsolescence, last-time-buy planning, and product transitions.
- Identify program risks, customer needs, and opportunities for additional projects. Escalate issues as appropriate and collaborate with the KAM on account growth.
- Serve as a primary technical point of contact alongside the KAM, including participation in onsite customer visits and Solution Days.
- Hardware Project Execution, Lead hardware projects from requirements definition through design, prototype builds (EVT/DVT/PVT), validation, qualification, and transfer to mass production.
- Translate customer requirements into clear engineering specifications and manage project scope and engineering change requests.
- Develop and maintain integrated project schedules, milestones, and stage-gate reviews. Monitor timelines, project costs, non-recurring engineering (NRE) expenses, and BOM cost targets.
- Coordinate with Advantech R&D, product management, and manufacturing teams in Taiwan and China, as well as U.S.-based Product Managers (PMs) and Applications Engineers (AEs).
- Coordinate sample and prototype logistics, first-article inspections, and customer acceptance activities.
- Represent customer technical and quality requirements internally. Partner with quality teams to track failure analysis, corrective actions, and resolution while keeping customers informed.
- Ensure customer regulatory and certification requirements, such as FCC, CE, UL, and applicable industry-specific standards, are documented and coordinated with the appropriate compliance teams before product release.
- Technical Solutions and Pre-Sales Support, Partner with the KAM to identify suitable Advantech solutions based on customer requirements, including standard products, configured systems, and custom ODM solutions.
- Review customer specifications, block diagrams, and schematics. Recommend product configurations addressing CPU/platform, I/O, power, thermal, mechanical, and environmental requirements.
- Coordinate the quoting process by gathering requirements and obtaining pricing, NRE, and lead-time information from Product Managers and factory teams. Provide accurate, timely inputs to the KAM.
- Prepare technical, schedule, and NRE inputs for proposals and RFI/RFP/RFQ responses in collaboration with the KAM.
- Develop and deliver portions of customer presentations, both remotely and onsite.
- Maintain product and process knowledge through training and collaboration with Product Management and the sales organization.
-
Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related technical field; alternatively, an engineering technology diploma or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
-
At least 3–5 years of project management, program management, or hardware design/engineering experience involving electronic hardware products, such as embedded systems, industrial PCs, single-board computers, servers, or comparable products.
-
Practical understanding of the hardware product development lifecycle, including requirements, design, prototype builds, validation, new product introduction (NPI), and mass production.
-
Ability to interpret and discuss schematics, block diagrams, and PCB layouts, with working knowledge of PCB fabrication and assembly processes.
-
Working knowledge of BOMs and product lifecycle management processes, including EOL and PCNs.
-
Effective customer-facing communication and presentation skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts to technical and nontechnical audiences.
-
Demonstrated ability to coordinate multiple customers, projects, schedules, and competing priorities.
-
Experience coordinating cross-functional teams distributed across locations and time zones.
-
Proficiency with project scheduling tools, such as Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, or comparable software, and Microsoft 365 applications, including Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and Outlook.
-
Ability to organize and manage work independently in a remote work environment.
-
Willingness and ability to travel approximately 10–25% of the time, primarily for domestic customer visits.
-
Experience managing ODM, JDM, or electronics manufacturing services (EMS) projects, including collaboration with manufacturing partners in Taiwan or China.
-
Familiarity with x86 and Arm embedded platforms and the ability to coordinate BIOS, firmware, and board support package (BSP) or operating system image development.
-
Experience with industrial or ruggedized product requirements, including wide operating temperature ranges, shock and vibration, long product lifecycles, and industrial I/O.
-
Experience in a technical role supporting sales, such as Field Applications Engineer, Applications Engineer, or Sales Engineer.
-
Exposure to edge computing, edge AI/GPU platforms, or industrial networking.
-
PMP, PgMP, or a comparable project or program management certification.
-
Experience with CRM and product lifecycle management (PLM) tools, such as Salesforce, Agile PLM, or Arena.
-
Mandarin Chinese proficiency is a plus for collaboration with Taiwan-based design and project teams. English is the common business language; Mandarin is not required.
- Competitive salary dependent on experience (DOE)
- Winning culture with a friendly, team-oriented environment!
- Generous benefits package including medical, dental, vision, long-term disability, and life insurance.
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
- 401(k) with company match
- Education & personal development reimbursement program
- Generous vacation and paid holidays package
- Company events, and lunches
- Work from home program – once eligible
- Referral Bonus