Technical Project Manager

WE CANNOT PROVIDE VISA SPONSORSHIP DETAILS Preferred starting date: ASAP Weekly availability: Full-time, 40 hours per week Location: Delft, the Netherlands ABOUT FIDUCIAL Fiducial is a young but fast-growing deep-tech start-up with big ambitions at the frontier of autonomy, perception, and defence. Our core expertise lies in 3D vision and graphics technologies which we deploy in a dual-use context for inspection and defence. This role will focus mainly on defence context where we are developing on-board UAV situational-awareness software, with some involvement in industrial 3D visualization for aerospace sector. Our defence solutions are aimed to operate with low-cost and widely available sensors and compute. From there, we plan to develop a line-up of interconnected solutions to safeguard European safety. Our team consists of engineers that are passionate about the technology and solutions they develop. The only time most of us are not thinking about the technology is when we are asleep, and sometimes even then. Our team members have a background in different fields such as Aerospace Engineering, Computational Science and Engineering, Robotics and Computer Graphics. Our office is located in the Aerospace Innovation Hub, a start-up hub located on the TU Delft campus in the faculty of Aerospace Engineering. We work closely with top-tier partners, ranging from government agencies and prime contractors to academic research institutes and other start-ups. Our projects span from large tender orders in collaboration with partners to low TRL research with government agencies. Whether through formal R&D programs or rapid prototyping tracks, we operate at the intersection of innovation and deployment. YOUR ROLE As Technical Project Manager, you will help strengthen how Fiducial plans, governs, and delivers technical projects across the company. You will work across a varied portfolio that includes new product development, product roadmap implementation, customer demonstrations, customer deployments, system integrations, R&D programmes, internal capability development, and external partnerships. Depending on the needs of the organisation, you may take full ownership of a project, or provide delivery structure and governance across several related initiatives. Your role combines hands-on project delivery with the continued development of our technical delivery capability. You will help refine our existing project delivery framework, improve our project governance model, run the Project Review Board, and contribute to building a pool of Technical Project Managers and project support professionals as the company grows. You will work closely with engineering, product, operations, commercial teams, leadership, customers, and external integration partners. You will also work in support of our Technical Program Manager, who oversees the wider customer project portfolio. You will report directly to the COO. WHAT YOU WILL DO DELIVER TECHNICAL PROJECTS * Lead technical projects across product development, product roadmap implementation, customer demonstrations, deployments, system integrations, R&D, and partner-funded initiatives. * Translate objectives into clear project scope, activities, milestones, responsibilities, dependencies, and delivery plans. * Adapt your level of involvement to the needs of each project, taking full ownership where required or supporting technical leads and other project owners. * Coordinate projects involving software, hardware, testing, procurement, integration, and operational deployment. * Maintain momentum, follow through on commitments, and ensure that actions are completed. COORDINATE PRODUCT AND PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT * Plan and coordinate internal product and prototype development activities. * Support engineering teams in structuring roadmap implementation, development sprints, integration activities, and test cycles. * Maintain visibility of progress, blockers, technical dependencies, and required decisions. * Ensure that planning supports engineering execution without introducing unnecessary administrative overhead. COORDINATE CUSTOMER DEPLOYMENTS AND INTEGRATIONS * Coordinate technical and non-technical requirements for customer demonstrations, pilots, integrations, and deployments. * Align engineering, operations, hardware, logistics, customers, and external partners around a common delivery plan. * Manage dependencies between internal teams and external integration partners. * Coordinate preparation, testing, validation, deployment readiness, and follow-up activities. * Identify delivery risks early and drive timely resolution or escalation. STRENGTHEN PROJECT GOVERNANCE * Surface delivery risks, resource constraints, cross-project dependencies, and decisions requiring leadership intervention. * Track actions and ensure that decisions and escalations are followed through. * Help clarify project ownership, decision rights, reporting expectations, and escalation paths. * Give leadership a reliable overview of project status and portfolio health. MAINTAIN PROJECT VISIBILITY AND COMMUNICATION * Maintain project plans, milestones, risks, decisions, and actions in Notion. * Organise and facilitate project meetings, technical syncs, reviews, and stakeholder updates. * Prepare clear meeting notes, project summaries, status reports, and decision records. * Keep stakeholders informed without creating unnecessary meetings or reporting. * Connect engineering, product, operations, commercial teams, leadership, and external stakeholders. COORDINATE HARDWARE AND OPERATIONAL DEPENDENCIES * Coordinate procurement, delivery schedules, availability, and setup of hardware needed for development, testing, demonstrations, and deployments. * Align equipment, logistics, test locations, personnel, and external dependencies with project timelines. * Ensure operational requirements are identified early enough to avoid preventable delivery delays. This is a hands-on project-management role with real ownership. It is not a Scrum Master role, and you will not simply administer a process or follow a predefined playbook. You will actively deliver projects, improve how we work, and help build the systems required to support Fiducial’s next stage of growth. WHAT WE EXPECT FROM YOU * Professional experience managing technical projects involving software, hardware, engineering, system integration, or technical deployment. * A completed technical degree, such as Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, Physics, Systems Engineering, or another relevant discipline. * Experience developing project plans, milestones, dependencies, risk assessments, delivery forecasts, and stakeholder updates. * Experience coordinating multidisciplinary technical teams and external stakeholders. * Sufficient technical understanding to discuss system development, prototypes, interfaces, integration, testing, validation, and deployment with engineers. * Strong organisational and planning skills, with the ability to manage several projects and changing priorities simultaneously. * A proactive and assertive working style. You take initiative, ask for missing information, challenge unclear assumptions, and consistently follow up. * A self-starting mindset and the ability to make progress without detailed instruction. * Clear written and verbal communication skills. * The ability to translate technical challenges into project, delivery, resource, or stakeholder implications. * A calm and structured approach when timelines, requirements, or priorities change. * Experience with project and collaboration tools such as Notion, Jira, Slack, or similar platforms. * Familiarity with agile development and project-management methodologies. * Fluent English, both spoken and written. * Full-time availability for 40 hours per week. * A genuine interest in defence technology, drones, autonomous systems, and their operational applications. BONUS * Experience in defence, aerospace, UAVs, robotics, autonomy, computer vision, AI, positioning, navigation, or 3D visualisation. * Experience in an early-stage start-up or scale-up. * Experience working in both larger organisations and smaller, fast-moving companies. * Experience building or improving a project-management, PMO, or technical delivery function. * Experience managing or mentoring project delivery team. * Experience running formal project or portfolio governance forums. * Experience with customer deployments, field testing, system integration, or hardware-intensive projects. * A recognised project-management qualification such as PMP, PRINCE2, IPMA, or an equivalent certification. WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE You will help create a technical delivery organisation in which: * projects have clear ownership, scope, milestones, responsibilities, risks, and decision paths; * product development, roadmap implementation, R&D, and customer deployment projects are managed through an appropriate and proportionate delivery approach; * leadership has reliable visibility across the project portfolio; * the Project Review Board enables timely decisions, prioritisation, and intervention; * risks, blockers, and dependencies are identified early and actively managed; * Technical Project Managers and project support professionals work through a consistent but lightweight framework; * external stakeholders receive clear, timely, and reliable communication; * projects are delivered with greater predictability, accountability, and pace; and * engineering teams sustain their speed of delivery, agility, technical ownership, and freedom to innovate. WHAT WE OFFER * An exciting role in a fast-growing deep-tech start-up with meaningful responsibility from day one. * Money of course. * 25 vacation days per year. * Reimbursement of eligible travel expenses. * A company laptop. * Flexible working hours. * The option to work from home up to two days per week when project and operational requirements allow. * The opportunity to work in an international team of engineers and entrepreneurs solving complex real-world problems. * Freedom and autonomy in how you structure your work and implement improvements. * Real ownership of the projects and processes you lead. * The opportunity to experiment, iterate, learn quickly, and improve how the company operates. * An open, informal, and no-nonsense culture with short communication lines. THE APPLICATION PROCEDURE If, after reading the above, you believe you are the right person for this role, send us information that gives us a clear understanding of your background and experience. This may be a CV, portfolio, website, or another relevant source. If we see a potential fit, you will first receive a short follow-up questionnaire. Based on your answers, we may invite you to an interview that includes a project case discussion. This is not a technical examination. It is an opportunity to discuss a realistic project scenario and understand how you structure problems, make decisions, and communicate. If we believe there is a strong mutual fit, we will discuss the employment terms and next steps. Welcome to the team.