Customer Project Manager

At Materion, everyone is included, respected and offered opportunity to grow.

About the role

As Customer Project Manager/Commercial Project Manager for Key Accounts, you are responsible for maintaining and growing our customer base, including contract reviews, RFQs, and quotations. You ensure that key projects—orders with high organizational and technical complexity and high revenue volume—are properly scoped, delivered on time, and within budget. You contribute to the development of the Life Science and Industrial market strategy by the Commercial Director and develop key customer roadmaps. You foster smooth communication across functional units (Operations, R&D, Quality, etc.) to provide optimum solutions for customer projects in the quotation and execution process.

Responsibilities

• Organizational, technical, and financial leadership for execution of large customer projects.
• Preparing work packages (deliverables) for Operations and R&D and finalizing them to hand over responsibility for execution.
• Presenting project progress and results to customers.
• Organizing and managing project meetings with customers and suppliers.
• Managing milestone execution and financial forecast.
• Maintaining and growing the customer base, including contract reviews, RFQs, and quotations.
• Evaluating customer needs and specifications; checking feasibility and manufacturing expenses with R&D and Operations.
• Preparing price proposals and presenting them to customers; aligning pricing and margin strategy with the Commercial Director.
• Identifying strategic initiatives within the market and building strong relationships with key customers and partners.
• Presenting the company’s global technical capabilities at customer meetings and exhibitions.
• Staying abreast of industry trends, competitor activities, and market developments.
• Supporting the Commercial Director in strategy development and creating roadmaps for current and future key customers.

Main Tasks

• Lead technically complex or high-value projects.
• Manage quotations/proposals and present them to customers.
• Monitor milestone execution and financial forecasts for customer projects.
• Strategic customer management under the direction of the Commercial Director (e.g., align customer corporate strategy with Materion’s commercial strategy).
• Voice customer expectations, complaints, or appreciation to Product Management and Operations.
• Gain market intelligence and identify strategic market products.
• Work with Market/Ops/R&D leaders to define customer roadmaps (Products, Technology & Capability, Capacity).
• Work with Product Management to align pricing strategy.

Performance Indicators

• Budget achievement—Revenue, volume, timing, and margin for managed projects.
• Customer satisfaction scorecard & audit ratings.
• Order intake.

Requirements

Education

• Required: University degree in engineering, optics, physics, or similar, with experience in production technology or process engineering and business management education.

Experience

• Required: Over 7 years of experience in Product Management and/or B2B Sales/Account Management with technology-based products.
• Preferred: Over 5 years of work experience in high-technology areas, preferably within the Optical Sensor/Photonics market and/or Life Science and/or Industrial markets.
• Preferred: Experience in working at optics companies, preferably through education or employment at well-known first-class production technology companies.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Required: Ability to acquire basic knowledge of optical thin film coatings, structuring processes, assembly processes, and corresponding modern process and measurement technology.
• Required: Ability to combine technical complexity with business results-oriented requirements.
• Required: Potential to understand cultural aspects in Europe, Americas, and Asia; ability to cooperate with colleagues, teams, and customers from these regions to drive growth.
• Required: Affinity to work with global teams.
• Required: Willingness to travel worldwide for site or customer visits and to participate in international trade fairs and exhibitions.
• Preferred: Basic knowledge in optical coating/vacuum technology or optics manufacturing and production technology.

Pay

Salary range: $108,900.00 - $141,400.00. The final offer will be determined based on experience, education, geographic location, and other qualifications. The selection of the person to be hired is contingent on export compliance eligibility for access to U.S. controlled technology under ITAR and EAR regulations.