Technical Program Manager

Technical Program Manager

PHNX is the Department of Energy's and Department of War's answer to closing the gap in critical mineral supply chains. We are a "solids refinery" turning industrial waste, primarily coal ash and zinc slag, into three product streams: critical metals for semiconductors and defense, cement replacement material for construction, and fertilizer for agriculture.

Our platform delivers a triple win: securing domestic critical mineral supply chains, helping power producers retire coal ash liabilities, and giving concrete producers a cheaper, lower-carbon alternative to cement. We support coal communities, and remediate groundwater. PHNX was founded by Stanford, Tesla, and national lab alumni, backed by Trust Ventures, Overture, and KdT, and sponsored by the U.S. Department of War and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The role is to move our process from a pilot scale facility in San Leandro, CA to a demonstration facility at a coal power plant in Ohio to a commercial facility. You will be the person who turns that technical roadmap into a real schedule and drives it to execution.

The core of the job is program management in a hard-tech environment: building and owning the master schedule across process engineering, R&D, procurement, construction, and commissioning; coordinating daily between our engineering team, field operators, and EPC/construction partners; and catching technical and schedule risk before it hits the critical path.

You will own the program plan that determines whether PHNX hits its site milestones in Ohio and commercial milestones.

Program & Schedule Ownership. Build and maintain the master schedule spanning process engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning for both the Ohio demo site and the commercial facility. Translate the CTO/VP of Engineering's technical roadmap into concrete milestones, dependencies, and critical path.

Cross-Functional Coordination. Run the operating cadence between engineering, research, field ops, EPC/construction partners, and procurement. Convert technical decisions into site plans and weekly priorities.

Site Readiness & Commissioning. Coordinate equipment procurement, logistics, and commissioning planning across both sites. Run site readiness reviews and drive open items to closure.

Risk Management. Own the technical and schedule risk register. Identify issues in real time - a permitting delay, a long-lead equipment slip, a process design change - and drive them to resolution before they cascade.

Reporting. Maintain program status reporting for the CEO, CTO, investors, and DOE/DoW program managers. Keep documentation of technical decisions and process changes current.

3 - 5 years after college. Engineering undergraduate degree, required. Masters degree preferred. Mechanical, chemical, process, or materials preferred- you should be able to read a process flow diagram or P&ID, sanity-check a schedule against real engineering constraints, and hold your own with process engineers and site operators.

Track record running technical programs in a hardware, manufacturing, industrials, or process/chemical plant environment. This is not a software TPM role. We need someone who has managed schedules against physical constraints (equipment lead times, construction sequencing, commissioning), not just sprints.

High-output track record. We are not impressed by pedigree alone, but we do expect evidence of sustained excellence.

Comfortable doing the unglamorous work: chasing down a vendor delivery date, fixing a broken schedule, walking a site at 6am, then presenting status to the board the next day.

Direct communicator. You write clearly, push back when something is wrong, and do not hide behind hedges or buzzwords.

Excited to spend time on-site.

A seat at a company building the domestic supply chain for critical minerals and a cleaner cement industry.

Real execution - owning a program that determines whether hard-tech infrastructure gets built on schedule.

Competitive cash and meaningful equity.

A team that ships, holds a high bar, and treats this work as the most important thing we will ever do.

PHNX Materials is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws.