Program Manager Officer (Chip Leader experience)

The PMO leads the Program Management team, owning program governance and portfolio visibility across R&D and product development, and managing the team of Customer Program Managers (CPMs). The role reports to the VP Product.

The role sits between R&D, Product, Operations, Sales and customers: setting common program standards, consolidating all programs into one integrated view of schedule, risks, dependencies and resources, and making sure the CPM team delivers customer commitments in line with the product and development roadmap. The PMO Manager is accountable both for the performance of the team and for the health of the overall program portfolio.

Key Responsibilities

Team Leadership

• Lead, mentor and develop Program Managers (PM) team managing R&D and Customers projects: set goals, review performance and build program management capability.
• Allocate PMs to programs based on priorities, complexity and workload, with clear coverage and backup.
• Set standards for how PMs manage programs and customer relationships, and coach them through complex situations and escalations.
• Recruit and onboard new team members as the organization grows.

Program Governance & Methodology

• Define and maintain common program processes, templates, milestones and stage-gate reviews for R&D and product development.
• Ensure consistent planning, tracking and reporting across all programs.
• Run regular program review forums and track decisions, actions and owners through to closure.
• Drive continuous improvement based on lessons learned across programs.

Portfolio Consolidation & Visibility

• Consolidate all R&D and product programs into one integrated view of schedules, milestones, dependencies, risks and resources.
• Report program health, risks and key decisions to senior management on a regular cadence, accurately and early.
• Identify cross-program dependencies, resource conflicts and bottlenecks, and bring prioritization options and trade-offs to leadership.
• Support capacity planning for R&D and Operations resources across programs.

Customer & Cross-Functional Alignment

• Make sure customer requirements and commitments, as managed by the CPMs, are reflected in R&D and product plans, and that internal roadmaps support what is promised to customers.
• Lead alignment across R&D, Product, Operations, Quality, Sales and Customer Support, resolve conflicting priorities and escalate when needed.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for critical customer programs and escalations.
• Partner with Sales and Business Development so program priorities and forecasts support commercial objectives.

Key Success Measures

• Programs delivered against committed milestones, quality and launch targets across the portfolio.
• Accurate, timely visibility of program health, risks and dependencies for senior management.
• A strong CPM team with clear ownership, professional growth and low attrition.
• Consistent program processes adopted across R&D, Product and Operations.
• Customer trust and positive contribution to retention, design wins and revenue growth.

Position Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science or a related engineering discipline.
• Previous experience as a Chip Leader (mandatory), leading a chip program across R&D, validation and production.
• 8+ years in program or project management in semiconductor, electronics or embedded systems, including leading complex, multidisciplinary R&D programs from requirements through qualification and production.
• 3+ years of experience managing people, ideally a team of program or project managers.
• Experience building or running a PMO or program governance processes, and reporting to senior management.
• Strong technical understanding of hardware and software product development.
• Experience working with OEMs, Tier-1 suppliers, ODMs or other strategic customers.
• Ability to connect customer requirements, product roadmap, technical execution and commercial outcomes.
• Excellent written and verbal English, and experience in a global, multicultural environment with distributed teams.

Key Competencies

• People leadership: develops people, sets clear expectations and holds the team accountable.
• Program discipline: planning, prioritization, risk management and execution at portfolio level.
• Influence without authority: builds alignment with R&D, Product and Operations leadership.
• Executive communication: explains complex topics clearly to senior management, customers and technical teams.
• Structured problem solving and ownership: decisive under ambiguity, and personally drives topics to closure.
• Customer-oriented leadership: keeps the customer perspective present in R&D and product decisions.

Key Interfaces

Internal: VP Product / R&D, Silicon/R&D, Firmware, Hardware, Validation, Product Management, Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, Sales & Business Development, Customer Support and senior management. External: OEMs, Tier-1 suppliers, ODMs/CMs, technology partners and customer engineering/program o