Project Manager

Project Manager

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on site

THE SHORT VERSION

You are the person who makes sure things actually land.

Timebeat runs a lot of work in parallel: hardware builds, software releases, customer deliveries, supplier lead times and internal projects, split across London, Ho Chi Minh City and Dallas. Somebody has to hold the plan, know what is late before it is late, and chase the thing that has gone quiet. That is this job.

You will own project delivery out of our Vietnam office. Because we are small, you also keep the operational machine behind those projects running, meaning suppliers, shipping and stock, and you take chasing and coordination off the founders' desks.

You report directly to the co-founders. There is no layer in between.

ABOUT TIMEBEAT

We build precision time synchronisation hardware and software: PCIe cards, rack appliances and portable units that give stock exchanges, telecoms operators, broadcasters, defence primes and government programmes a clock they can prove is correct. We are headquartered in London with offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Dallas, Texas. The company is small, profitable and growing, and the volume of work in flight has outgrown the number of people tracking it. That is why this role exists.

WHY THIS ROLE IS WORTH HAVING

You own delivery, not status reporting.

You are not collecting updates so somebody more senior can make the call. You make the call, you move the date or you unblock the blocker, and you tell the founders what you did. Decisions you take about a supplier, a shipment or a schedule are the company's decisions. That is unusual at this level and it is the honest attraction of the job.

Real projects with real things in them.

Hardware builds, component lead times, firmware releases, customer installations and shipments that have to clear customs. Plans here are tested by physical reality, not by a ticket count. It is a better place to learn the craft than a backlog.

International by default.

Every project you run touches at least two of London, Ho Chi Minh City and Dallas. Three time zones, two legal jurisdictions, one plan. If you want delivery experience that is not confined to one market, this builds it.

Small company, visible results.

When you fix how something runs here it stays fixed and everyone notices. Nothing you do disappears into a process or waits three months for a committee.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

Project delivery, the core of the job

• Own the plan for the work running out of Vietnam: scope, sequence, owners, dates and dependencies, kept in one place everyone can see rather than in your head.

• Run the delivery cadence. Regular check ins with the people doing the work, a clear view of what moved and what did not, and a weekly status to London that is honest about slippage rather than optimistic about recovery.

• Track dependencies and lead times, especially the ones outside the company: component availability, supplier commitments, contract manufacturing slots, certification and shipping windows. These are what usually break a date here.

• Manage risk actively. Identify what could go wrong early, decide what you are doing about it, and escalate what you cannot absorb before it becomes the reason something is late.

• Drive actions to closure. Most delivery slippage is small things that nobody chased. You are the person who chases, politely and relentlessly.

• Coordinate across offices so nothing waits a day for a time zone, and keep the record of what was decided, what changed and what was promised.

• Improve how we run projects. We do not have heavy process and we do not want any, but we do want a way of working that repeats. Build it as you go.

Keeping the operation behind the projects running

This part is smaller than the project work, and it exists because a plan in this company fails on logistics more often than on effort.

• Suppliers, vendors and the day to day running of the Vietnam office, so that nothing stops people working.

• Shipping and logistics: inbound components, outbound units, customs and import paperwork, couriers and freight.

• Stock: what we hold, where it is and what is committed to a customer. Your dates depend on that record being right.

• Liaison to our accountants and to finance in London for invoices, payments, expenses and the paperwork the entity has to file on time. You are not the accountant. You make sure the accountant has what they need.

• Local compliance and contract paperwork, with the judgement to escalate to counsel rather than guess.

Founders' office

• Track the commitments the founders make and make sure they land. Often you will be the only person who remembers a thing was promised.

• Prepare and tidy documents and reports so they are ready to be signed or sent rather than half finished.

• Take the chasing, coordination and follow up off their desks, which is the same skill as the rest of the job pointed at a different queue.

• Handle confidential material with judgement. You will see commercial, financial and personal information routinely.

 HOW WE WORK ACROSS TIME ZONES

 We are being direct about this because it is the part of the job most likely to make or break it.

Vietnam is six hours ahead of London and twelve ahead of Dallas, and the company is not going to reorganise around a single working day. In practice that means an overlap with London most afternoons, occasional early or late contact with the US, and priority given to the founders when they need an answer. When they are blocked on something you hold, that comes first.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Essential

• Several years running projects end to end, with real ownership of the outcome rather than administering someone else's plan.

• A track record of delivering against dates that involved other people and outside suppliers, and an honest account of a time one slipped and what you did about it.

• Strong written and spoken English. Most of your working relationships will be with London and the US, and your written status reporting is how they will know where things stand.

• Fluent Vietnamese, and the practical local knowledge that goes with it: how to get things done with suppliers, couriers, banks, landlords and authorities here.

• Comfort with numbers. Schedules, lead times, budgets, stock values and shipping costs, and enough care to notice when a figure is wrong.

• Genuinely organised. You keep a system that survives you being busy, and things do not fall through it.

• Sound judgement about escalation. You resolve what you can and raise what you should, and you can tell the difference.

• Discretion, tested. Confidential information stays with you.

• Willing to work across time zones as described above, and reachable by the founders when it counts.

• Based in Ho Chi Minh City, or ready to move here. This role is on site.

Desirable

• Delivery experience in hardware, electronics, manufacturing or another business where physical goods and lead times decide the date.

• Working with contract manufacturers, suppliers or freight forwarders.

• A recognised project management qualification, or the equivalent learned on the job. We care far more about the second than the first.

• Experience with a foreign owned company in Vietnam, or with a Vietnamese subsidiary of an overseas group.

• Exposure to import, export or customs.

• Experience supporting founders or executives directly.

• Comfort with the usual project tools, and interest in improving how we use them rather than tolerating them.

• Nobody arrives with every one of these. If you have the essentials and two or three of the desirables, apply.