Senior Project Manager in Vancouver

At Cespira™, your work can directly shape how demanding transport evolves. We are a focused, international team developing and scaling technology that is already operating on roads around the world, while engineering what comes next. Our proprietary HPDI™ fuel systems make renewable fuels work in heavy-duty applications where performance, efficiency and reliability cannot be compromised.

Choosing where to build your career matters. At Cespira, you can take on meaningful technical and commercial challenges, work across disciplines and markets, and see the impact of your expertise. If you want to grow while helping reshape how the transport industry moves forward, this is where you can make a difference.

As Senior Project Manager, you will help turn that ambition into execution, leading complex product and technology programs across engineering, operations, customers and partners. You will drive cross-functional alignment, manage critical dependencies and milestones, and ensure programs move from development through industrialization and production with the discipline expected in the automotive industry.

This is a role for someone who can bring structure to complexity, communicate confidently across technical and senior leadership teams, and keep high-stakes programs moving. During product development, the Senior Project Manager will oversee execution of Cespira’s Product Development Process (CPDP) to ensure timely, high-quality outcomes. In production, the role takes ownership of product change requests from initiation through successful implementation.

The position requires a strong team player with experience in automotive product development, acute attention to detail, the ability to communicate effectively with senior management, and a consistently high standard of execution.

Job Requirements

• Project Execution: Own the cross functional execution schedule for the assigned Product(s) - plan it, drive it, and make the trade-offs when reality disagrees with the plan.
• Facilitate communication between product team members and other departments, ensuring everyone is aligned on key objectives. Escalate issues that cannot be resolved through the appropriate channels.
• Keep the team pulling in the same direction and say so loudly and early when they're not.
• Run Cespira's Product Development Process (CPDP) with discipline - not as a checkbox, but because it's how complex hardware projects actually ship on time.
• Build and maintain the risk register before problems become crises, and drive the mitigation plans yourself.
• Coordinate prototype ordering and tracking across every active project - the physical builds that turn designs into proof.
• Support the Program Manager with budget forecasting and planning.
• Capture lessons learned, identify solutions, and drive change through the organization.

Change Management

• Take ownership of product change requests end to end - from impact assessment through implementation.
• Support the quoting and execution of customer PCR’s specific to their Product.

Product Planning

• Partner with the Product Manager on product roadmaps and ongoing business case evaluation for ongoing Product improvements.

What you bring:

• 10+ years' experience in project and program management, PMP, PgMP certification (or equivalent) asset.
• 15+ years' experience in an engineering environment, preferably in the automotive industry.
• A track record of running large, technically complex projects to completion, not just keeping the status report green.
• Real fluency with APQP and gated development processes, and the judgment to know when agile and waterfall each earn their place.
• Superior communication and interpersonal skills to foster strong customer and Cespira relationships.
• A bachelor’s degree in engineering (Master's in a related field a plus), and a willingness to travel internationally when the work calls for it.

Who you are:

• Passionate. You are determined in all aspects of your work. You are driven by success and are motivated by the success of our customers, colleagues and the Cespira business.
• Empathetic. You are an active listener with a strong desire to understand others’ perspectives. Your ability to connect with people fosters trust, collaboration, and a supportive environment.
• Problem Solver. You tackle challenges head on. You analyze situations thoroughly, think critically, and develop creative, effective solutions that drive results.