Job Description

Senior Technical Project Manager - Automotive

Location: Michigan - Bloomfield Hills or Troy

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Technical Project Manager to join our Automotive Engineering Project Management organization.

In this role, you will lead complex, cross-functional engineering programs and strategic initiatives spanning software, hardware, systems engineering, validation, suppliers, finance, purchasing, and global engineering teams.

You will operate at the intersection of technology, business, and execution-creating clarity around priorities, driving accountability, proactively managing risks, and ensuring teams deliver against technical, schedule, financial, and customer commitments.

This is more than a project tracking role. We are looking for a leader who can understand complex technical environments, challenge assumptions, influence decisions, and continuously improve how our engineering organization executes.

What You'll Do

Lead Complex Technical Programs

• Lead complex automotive engineering programs from ideation and concept exploration through development, driving execution in alignment with defined product development lifecycle phases, technical milestones, and gate requirements.
• Develop and manage integrated project plans encompassing scope, schedule, technical deliverables, resources, budget, risks, dependencies, and milestones.
• Partner closely with Engineering teams to understand technical architecture, requirements, dependencies, validation strategies, and implementation risks.
• Drive execution across software, hardware, systems, validation, product, purchasing, finance, and other cross-functional organizations.
• Establish clear ownership and accountability for project deliverables.
• Drive timely resolution of technical and program-level issues affecting project commitments.

Drive Project Governance & Execution Excellence

• Establish effective project governance, operating cadence, decision-making processes, and escalation mechanisms.
• Define and monitor meaningful project KPIs and provide objective visibility into project health.
• Lead program reviews, milestone reviews, risk reviews, and executive-level discussions.
• Identify execution gaps and bottlenecks and establish actionable recovery plans.
• Drive consistent project management standards and best practices across programs.
• Champion continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to simplify processes, improve transparency, and increase engineering execution efficiency.

Manage Financial & Resource Performance

• Manage project financial performance including budget, forecast, actuals, resource demand, external engineering spend, and financial risks.
• Partner with Finance and Engineering leadership to maintain accurate forecasts and clear visibility into financial performance.
• Monitor resource demand versus availability and identify capacity constraints that could impact project commitments.
• Support annual operating planning, quarterly business reviews and ongoing forecast activities.
• Drive financial discipline around project changes, external engineering expenditures, purchase orders, and supplier commitments.
• Understand the connection between technical decisions, project execution, and financial outcomes.

Proactively Manage Risk & Change

• Establish disciplined management of project risks, issues, actions, decisions, and dependencies.
• Identify risks early and ensure appropriate mitigation plans, owners, and timelines are established.
• Escalate critical issues with a clear understanding of technical impact, business impact, options, and recommended actions.
• Lead cross-functional resolution of issues affecting cost, schedule, quality, technical performance, or customer commitments.
• Ensure changes in project scope or requirements are evaluated for their downstream technical, resource, schedule, and financial impacts.

Lead Supplier & External Partner Execution

• Coordinate execution with engineering suppliers and external service providers supporting software and hardware development.
• Partner with Engineering and Purchasing to establish clear Statements of Work, deliverables, milestones, acceptance criteria, and supplier commitments.
• Monitor supplier performance against technical, schedule, quality, and cost expectations.
• Identify supplier-related risks and drive appropriate recovery and escalation plans.
• Support effective management of external engineering investments.

Influence Across a Global Organization

• Build strong partnerships across geographically distributed engineering teams and business functions.
• Create alignment around priorities, commitments, dependencies, and decisions.
• Influence outcomes without relying solely on organizational authority.
• Translate complex technical and project information into concise, actionable insights.
• Prepare and communicate project health, risks, financial performance, and critical decisions to senior leadership.
• Foster a culture of transparency, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Who You Are

You are a technical project leader who is comfortable working in ambiguity and bringing structure to complex environments.

You combine technical curiosity with strong execution discipline. You ask the right questions, understand how technical decisions affect business outcomes, and know when additional depth is required from engineering experts.

You don't simply report project status-you help teams determine what needs to happen next.

You build trust across functions while maintaining accountability for commitments. You are comfortable communicating with engineers, suppliers, functional leaders, and executives and can adjust the level of detail appropriately for each audience.

Most importantly, you are passionate about creating better ways of working and helping teams deliver exceptional results.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or another related technical discipline.
• 8+ years of professional experience, including significant experience leading complex engineering or technical programs.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional engineering programs with multiple teams, stakeholders, and dependencies.
• Strong understanding of project/program management including scope, schedule, budget, resources, risk, change management, and governance.
• Experience partnering directly with engineering teams in a product development environment.
• Demonstrated ability to identify project risks and drive cross-functional resolution.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
• Excellent written, verbal, and executive-level communication skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and drive results within a dynamic global organization.

Preferred

• Experience within automotive, embedded systems, audio, or another complex technology/product development environment.
• Experience managing programs involving embedded software, hardware, systems engineering, or integrated product development.
• Experience working with automotive customers and automotive product development processes.
• Experience managing engineering suppliers, external service providers, and Statements of Work.
• Experience with engineering budgets, forecasting, resource planning, and external development costs.
• Experience with tools such as Jira, Confluence, Microsoft Project, Power BI, Excel, or equivalent platforms.
• PMP, PgMP, Agile/Scrum, SAFe, ASPICE or equivalent certification is a plus.
• Experience operating within globally distributed engineering organizations.

How You'll Make an Impact

Success in this role means creating greater predictability, transparency, and accountability across our engineering programs.

You will help us:

• Deliver critical engineering commitments with greater predictability.
• Identify risks before they become major execution issues.
• Improve visibility into technical readiness, schedule, resources, and financial performance.
• Strengthen collaboration between Engineering, Finance, Purchasing, Product, customers, and suppliers.
• Establish scalable project management practices across the organization.
• Continuously improve the efficiency and effectiveness of engineering execution.

At Bose, you're inspired to be and do your best and are rewarded for your unique talents! Our compensation is thoughtfully tailored to your skills, experience, education, and location, and goes beyond base salary. The hiring range for this position in the primary work location of Troy, Michigan is: $109,700-$150,875.The hiring range for other Bose work locations may vary.In addition to competitive base pay we offer rewards including bonus programs, comprehensive health and welfare benefits, a 401(k) plan, plus exclusive perks designed to support your wellbeing, and a generous employee discount where you can immerse yourself in our products and experiences.