Solsta
Project Manager (Leading to Programme Manager)
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The Role
Reporting to the Commercial Manager – Manufacturing, you will manage a portfolio of customer-funded design projects within Solsta’s Design & Manufacturing Division. You will ensure structured, compliant, and efficient delivery of projects through the full lifecycle, maintaining governance of the ISO13485-aligned NPD/NPI process in collaboration with the Chief Engineer.
You will coordinate cross-functional engineering teams, manage risks, maintain project discipline, and ensure smooth transition into manufacturing. This role is essential to enabling the Commercial Manager to focus on commercial strategy and business growth.
As the division expands, this role offers a clear pathway to Programme Manager, with responsibility for multi-project oversight, resource planning, and portfolio-level governance.
Key Responsibilities
Project and Programme Delivery
- Manage the full project lifecycle from initiation to completion, ensuring adherence to schedule, budget, scope, and quality requirements.
- Maintain and enforce the ISO13485-aligned NPD and NPI processes, ensuring all projects follow defined design controls, documentation standards, and stage-gate requirements.
- Lead project planning activities, including scope definition, scheduling, resource planning, and risk management.
- Monitor progress, identify risks and issues, and implement mitigation strategies to maintain delivery performance.
- Provide clear, structured reporting to the Commercial Manager and senior stakeholders, including KPIs, risks, dependencies, and recommendations.
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Technical Coordination
- Coordinate cross-functional teams (design, electronics, mechanical, manufacturing, quality, supply chain) to ensure effective communication and seamless project execution.
- Support technical reviews, validation activities, and readiness assessments prior to release into manufacturing.
- Ensure all project documentation meets ISO13485, internal quality procedures, and customer expectations.
- Influence engineering teams to maintain momentum and deliverables without performing engineering tasks directly.
Programme Management & Prioritisation
- Work with the Commercial Manager to prioritise the project portfolio, balancing resources across concurrent projects.
- Maintain programme-level visibility of capacity, dependencies, and constraints.
- Support continuous improvement of project governance, reporting, and PMO-style processes.
Stakeholder & Customer Engagement
- Act as a primary point of contact for internal and external stakeholders, managing expectations and building strong relationships.
- Support customer-funded development activities, ensuring commercial and technical requirements are clearly understood and delivered.
- Provide structured updates to customers where required.
- Represent Solsta D&M professionally at customer sites, reviews, and technical meetings.
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Skills & Experience
Essential
- Proven track record delivering complex engineering projects on time, within budget, and to defined quality standards.
- Strong understanding of structured project management methodologies and tools.
- Experience working within regulated industries (defence, biotech, medical, aerospace) highly desirable.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence without direct authority.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple concurrent projects.
- Comfortable operating autonomously, managing time, priorities, and stakeholder expectations with minimal supervision.
- Comfortable navigating ambiguity and influencing progress in situations where not everyone moves at the same pace. Able to maintain a constructive, solutions focused approach when faced with resistance or competing priorities.
Desirable
- Experience with ISO13485, defence standards, or other regulated quality systems.
- Familiarity with optoelectronics, photonics, biomedical instrumentation, or defence electro-optical systems.
- Experience with DFM, validation, and manufacturing transfer processes.
- Eligibility for UK security clearance (BPSS or higher) advantageous.
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