Senior Technical Project Manager (Fairfield)

Quality Gold, Inc. is a family-owned global company founded in 1979. We are headquartered in Fairfield, Ohio, and operate within the United States, Canada, and India. As a wholesale distributor and manufacturer, we offer more than 165,000 jewelry and gift products that are available to ship same day, and more than 150,000 items available via special order. We actively serve more than 15,000 retailers across the United States, its territories, and Canada.

BENEFITS: We offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes the following:

Medical, dental, and vision insurance, company-paid life insurance, and short/long-term disability insurance are all available to you on the first month following your start date. Over two weeks of Paid Time Off (PTO) that starts accruing on your first day of employment and increases after six years of service. Company 401(K) program with company matching that you are eligible to participate in the first month following three months of employment. Profit sharing, supplemental insurance, adoption assistance, employee discount, referral program, employee assistance program, and more!

SUMMARY: The Senior Technical Project Manager – Enterprise Systems position will serve as the bridge between business leadership, operational end users, and the programming team. The successful candidate will work directly with employees throughout the business to understand how work is actually performed, not just how it is described in meetings. This may include observing processes, walking through detailed workflows, and occasionally performing parts of the work alongside the end users.

The role will lead both new technology initiatives and improvements to existing applications and processes, taking ownership from initial discovery through requirements, development, testing, implementation, and post-launch follow-up. This is a hands-on project leadership position, not primarily a meeting-coordination or project-administration role.

This role combines a business analyst and a project manager in one person; there is no separate business analyst on the team. About half the work is analysis; learning how the business actually operates, documenting workflows, rules, and exceptions, and defining requirements a developer can build from. The other half is delivery: planning, sequencing, and driving projects to a finished, adopted result. Candidates who have managed only schedules and status reports, or written only requirements without owning delivery, will find this role broader than they are used to.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

· Work directly with business leaders and frontline employees to understand operational processes, pain points, workarounds, and system limitations.

· Serve as the business analyst on your own projects, discovery, requirements, and solution definition are owned by this role, not handed off.

· Document current workflows, business rules, expectations, data requirements, and opportunities for improvement.

· Translate business needs into clear requirements, process flows, acceptance criteria, and implementation plans for the programming team.

· Lead projects from initial concept through planning, development, user acceptance testing, deployment, training, and post-implementation review.

· Coordinate work among business departments, developers, vendors, and other external partners.

· Manage project scope, priorities, milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions, and expected outcomes.

· Ensure testing reflects real operational scenarios, including exceptions and less-common situations.

· Identify opportunities to reduce manual work, eliminate duplicate data entry, improve accuracy, strengthen controls, and simplify business processes.

· Help prioritize projects and enhancement requests based on business value, urgency, effort, risk, and available development capacity.

· Communicate project status, risks, decisions, and next steps clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. 

· Regular attendance and compliance with the Company's handbook policies and procedures.

Technology Environment

Quality Gold’s application environment supports manufacturing, inventory, purchasing, pricing, order processing, fulfillment, shipping, accounting, reporting, and external business partners. It includes:

· Custom ERP and enterpose business applications.

· C#.NET applications.

· Microsoft SQL Server.

· Long-standing COBOL-based and other legacy systems.

· EDI, APIs, web services, and file-based integrations.

· Shipping, warehouse, labeling, and manufacturing systems.

· Third-party customer, supplier, and carrier integrations.

This position is not a software development role, but candidates must have sufficient technical depth to work effectively with developers, understand application and database dependencies, and participate meaningfully in solution discussions.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:  This position does not have direct supervisory responsibility but is expected to lead cross-functional project teams and establish accountability among project participants through influence and collaboration.

COMPETENCIES:

· Strong understanding of enterprise business systems and operational processes.

· Demonstrated experience leading complex technology and business process improvement projects.

· Strong analytical and critical-thinking abilities.

· Ability to translate business requirements into technical specifications.

· Knowledge of ERP systems, custom applications, databases, integrations, APIs, and data flows.

· Excellent organizational, planning, communication, and problem-solving skills.

· Ability to influence stakeholders and achieve results without direct authority.

· Ability to work effectively with executive leadership, operational personnel, technical staff, and external vendors.

· Strong time-management and organizational skills.

· Demonstrated change management and process improvement abilities.

· Excellent communication skills.

· Customer-focused.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

· Prolonged periods of sitting and working on a computer.

· Ability to walk through office, warehouse, manufacturing, and distribution environments to observe operational processes. 

· Ability to communicate effectively with employees across all levels of the organization.

· Ability to occasionally lift up to 15 pounds. 

WORK ENVIRONMENT:

This position operates primarily in an office environment, with frequent interactions in the warehouse, manufacturing and distribution areas.

Individuals working in the secure area must follow the Company's Secure Area Dress Code and Security policies and procedures. All clothing must be free from metal, and no metal may be worn into the secure area of the building. Any metal inside or outside the body due to a medical condition must be visually inspected, or reasonable accommodations may be made.

POSITION TYPE AND EXPECTED HOURS OF WORK:

This is an on-site, full-time, overtime-exempt position working standard business hours, Monday through Friday. Additional hours may be required based on project schedules, system implementations, testing activities, and business needs.

TRAVEL: Negligible

REQUIRED EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

· Eight or more years of combined experience across technical project management and business analysis in an enterprise applications or business systems environment, including meaningful time performing both.

· At least five years of experience leading complex ERP, application-development, systems-integration, or business-process improvement projects.

· Meaningful experience supporting technology in a manufacturing, wholesale distribution, supply chain, warehouse, fulfillment, or other physical-product environment. 

· Experience working directly with frontline end users to understand and improve operational processes.

· Demonstrated ability to translate complex business processes into requirements that a software development team can implement.

· Hands-on business analysis experience – process discovery, current-state and future documentation, requirements specification, and acceptance criteria – in addition to project management experience.

· Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle, including discovery, requirements, development, testing, deployment, and user adoption.

· Working knowledge of ERP systems, custom applications, relational databases, system integrations, APIs, and data flows.

PREFERRED EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

· Experience spanning both manufacturing and wholesale distribution operations.

· Experience with Microsoft SQL Server and C#.NET applications.

· Experience supporting or modernizing COBOL-based or other long-standing legacy systems.

· Experience with EDI, APIs, shipping systems, warehouse systems, ERP integrations, or customer and supplier data exchanges.

· Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or equival]]> <