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.
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.
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