Project Manager- Product Development

Job Details Level: Experienced

Job Location:

Maple Grove Office - Maple Grove, MN 55369

Position Type:
Full Time Education Level: 4 Year Degree Salary Range: $90,000.00 - $ Salary/year

Job Shift: First Job Category:
Other Gradian is an engineering-led, full-line thermal solutions partner serving data center and other mission-critical, commercial, and industrial markets. Headquartered in Maple Grove, MN, with additional facilities across North America, we design and manufacture liquid cooling systems, air handling equipment, heat rejection units, and modular, factory-assembled thermal management solutions.

Gradian was founded through the unification of four complementary, established brands: MAS HVAC, Daedex, DeepCoolAI, and Eco Chillers. Together, we act as a single-source provider, deploying cooling technologies as scalable systems optimized for efficiency, spatial constraints, and overall performance. With a vertically integrated engineering and manufacturing model, we pair rapid design turnaround with precision fabrication, so customers can move faster on complex projects where reliability, timeline, and quality all matter.

At Gradian, you'll work alongside others who get genuinely fired up by complex problems, see your work go from first sketch to job site in weeks, not years, and know that while we're developing the technologies critical for AI infrastructure to scale, our culture remains people-first by design.

It is core to our identity that we operate as one team — driving to win together, energizing others, and building lasting relationships that make the work fun and rewarding.

As a Project Manager, you will play a critical role in planning, coordinating, and executing technical engineering projects from concept through completion. This position bridges engineering design and project management, ensuring projects meet quality standards, timelines, and budget requirements. The role involves technical oversight, cross-functional collaboration, and leadership of engineering teams to deliver innovative and reliable solutions, with a focus on thermal cooling systems and data center applications.

• Develop and maintain project plans, schedules, and budgets for NPD programs, ensuring alignment with the product roadmap and business objectives.
• Define project scope, technical requirements, deliverables, and resource needs in partnership with leadership.
• Own scope, schedule, cost, risk, and quality from concept through design release, pilot build, and launch. Monitor progress, surface risks early, and implement corrective actions.
• Prepare for and support internal and external gate reviews, design reviews, and milestone events.

• Coordinate cross-functional development teams including Design Engineering, Production Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Quality.
• Coordinate prototype builds, design verification testing, and pilot production runs, including thermal performance validation for liquid cooling systems.
• Partner with Supply Chain and Quality on new component sourcing, supplier qualification, and first-article inspection.
• Drive design-for-manufacturability review between Engineering and Operations.
• Manage the transition from pilot to production release, ensuring documentation, tooling, and process readiness are complete at handoff.

• Execute project communication using standard PMO tools: weekly status updates, milestone notices, schedule reports, and risk and issue summaries.
• Maintain PMO digital artifacts in Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, including the Decisions Log, Risk and Issue Log, action item register, and approvals.
• Manage change orders (COs) with routing, impact assessment, cross-functional approval, and release. Ensure documents remain current and version-controlled.
• Maintain consistent, predictable communication with all project stakeholders.
• Track project budgets and development spend, protecting margin through proactive risk mitigation and formal change control.

• Capture lessons learned and recommend improvements to PMO processes, templates, and tools.
• Support the rollout of new standards, stage-gate practices, and KPIs as Gradian scales its program management framework.

• 2–5 years of project management experience in new product development, engineered-product, or engineer-to-order…