Director of Customer Program Management - Santa Clara, CA, United States
Originally posted 29 September 2026 by the employer.
About the role
The Director of Customer Program Management (CPM) is accountable for integrated program delivery for assigned strategic customers across multiple product lines, ensuring that Coherent’s businesses and functions align around customer commitments, clear ownership, and timely execution. As the customer-facing program leader within the Strategic Customer Office, the CPM connects customer requirements and milestones with the plans of the teams responsible for delivery.
What you'll do
- Own and maintain the integrated customer program plan, translating agreed commitments into milestones, deliverables, accountable owners and acceptance criteria.
- Connect milestones for new product introduction, qualification, supply readiness, and production ramp to customer schedules.
- Track performance against commitments and drive corrective actions with the teams responsible for execution.
- Establish and run the operating cadence for assigned strategic customers, leading weekly Customer Ops Reviews.
- Maintain a consolidated risk register, identify risks early, assess customer impact, and establish mitigation and recovery plans.
- Support Sales and Customer BU leadership with timely, accurate, and consistent program communication that reflects one aligned Coherent position.
What you'll need
- At least 15 years of progressive experience in B2B technology program management, operations, or product management.
- Experience with hardware development, qualification, and production ramps, preferably in photonics, optical communications, semiconductors, or lasers.
- Strong capability in integrated planning, dependency management, risk assessment and recovery execution.
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a related technical discipline, or equivalent relevant experience.
- Executive presence and the ability to explain the customer impact of technical and operational issues and identify the executive decisions required.
- Sound judgment in ambiguous, high-pressure situations, with a results-oriented approach to customer satisfaction.
Nice to have
- Experience with large strategic customers, new product introductions, product transfers, supply-constrained environments, or multi-site delivery programs.
- Program management certification.
Skills: customer program management, integrated program plan, new product introduction, risk management, customer communication
This role has been open 11 days — well below the 50-day median for Technical Program Management roles.
Technical Program Management · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
161
|
Median days open
50 d
|
Median salary
$219k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Coherent Corp | All employers we track in this specialty (161 roles · 47 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 1 | 161 |
| Median days open | 11 d | 50 d (−39 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $219k |
Skills observed across this category: customer program management, integrated program plan, new product introduction, risk management, customer communication
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 25 open roles · median 50 d
- AMD · 17 open roles · median 36 d
- NVIDIA · 17 open roles · median 43 d
- Synopsys · 13 open roles · median 50 d
- Arm Holdings · 10 open roles · median 76 d
- Astera Labs · 5 open roles · median 107 d
How we counted: 161 open Technical Program Management (SOC Architecture) roles from 47 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 10 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there. Figures refresh nightly.