Program Manager - Gas Delivery
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 13, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 22, 2026. Watlow scores B on the Alion truth index.
At Watlow’s Global Headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, we combine a rich legacy with forward-thinking innovation. Founded in 1922 in the heart of St. Louis, Watlow has grown from a small heating element manufacturer into a global leader in thermal systems. Our headquarters is more than just an office, it’s a hub for collaboration, advanced engineering, and customer focused solutions.
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We are hiring a: Program Manager- Gas Delivery
St. Louis, MO
Watlow is seeking a transformation Program Manager to join our Gas Delivery Platform organization in a highly visible role with a clear mandate: cut our front-end cycle time for modified standard products and make Watlow the easiest gas delivery supplier in the industry to start a new project with. In this position you will own the entire quote-to-proto-to-HVM flow as a single, governed value stream, from customer requirement capture through configured quote, design, prototype, and release.
You will be responsible for driving results by orchestrating a cross-functional value stream you do not directly control, working through SLAs, governance, and executive sponsorship rather than command over every function. If you have led a real engineered-to-order to configure-to-order transformation with numbers to prove it, know how to build configuration logic and automation as the business owner, and want the opportunity to build a new discipline from the ground up, we would love to connect with you.
What You’ll Do:
Value Stream Ownership: Own the global front-end value stream for modified standard and configurable products end to end, from customer requirement capture through configured quote, design, prototype, and HVM release.
Cycle-Time Transformation: Drive the total front-end clock from 60 days to under 15 by advancing the automation program, the configuration architecture, and the customer approval model together, not in isolation.
Configuration Architecture: Define and own the standard, configured, custom, and decline gate along with the customization selector logic that makes automation possible.
Automation Program: Own the scope and sequence of the automation program, including configured quoting, design automation, and prototype capability build-out across sites.
SLA & Performance Governance: Author step-level service agreements with each process owner and run the monthly scorecard that serves as the single source of truth for front-end performance.
Customer Approval Model: Partner with major account teams to redesign the customer approval and review loops that make up roughly half of today’s cycle time, without damaging the relationship.
Cross-Functional Leadership: Shape the org design of quoting, applications engineering, and design functions, and guide the design capacity glidepath as automation reduces manual effort.
Executive Alignment: Partner with senior leaders and your executive sponsor to secure buy-in, resolve escalations, and keep the transformation on track inside a hard matrix.
What you´ll need to succeed?
Bachelor's degree in Engineering or a related field
8+ years leading configure-to-order or quote-to-delivery cycle-time transformations in industrial or manufacturing environments
Proven ability to own a cross-functional value stream without owning the underlying functions, delivering through SLAs, cadence, and executive sponsorship in a matrixed organization
Experience building or product-owning configuration logic, CPQ, or design automation as the business owner, not the IT implementer
Technical fluency strong enough to credibly challenge product architecture decisions with engineers and product managers
Executive presence that holds up with demanding, technically sophisticated customers
Global operating experience across both low-cost and technical centers
Preferred Qualifications:
Background in an industrial business that sells configured products through a selector or CPQ at scale
Experience in semiconductor capital equipment or another high-mix, low-volume, components-or-subsystems environment
AI-fluent and hands-on, with experience building and deploying tools, workflows, or agents that compress cycle time
Track record of building a selector or configurator that the sales organization actually adopted
Experience removing approval steps from a demanding customer’s process without damaging the relationship