Project Controls Manager

Crusoe

• $130K — $150K *
Manufacturing & Automotive
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 6+ years in project controls, cost engineering, or manufacturing finance specifically in ETO environments
  • Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Finance, Accounting, or a related quantitative field
  • Proven ownership of cost baselines and earned value measurement
  • Advanced skills in Google Sheets for data reconciliation and analysis
  • Hands-on experience with ERP systems for job costing and work orders
  • Experience with project scheduling tools like Smartsheet or Primavera P6
  • Demonstrated ability to influence teams without direct authority

Responsibilities

  • Establish PMO-wide standards for cost and schedule baselining
  • Define and audit baseline change control protocols across sectors
  • Validate cost and scope details before program initiation
  • Develop robust reporting tools for cost-to-complete and estimate-at-completion
  • Conduct monthly program economics reviews for ongoing operations
  • Manage SOPs and tooling for project controls
  • Maintain and enhance reporting and dashboarding systems for executive management

Benefits

  • Competitive compensation and equity packages
  • Restricted Stock Units
  • Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
  • Paid parental leave and vacation time
  • Professional development and tuition reimbursement
  • 401(k) with company match
  • Mental health and wellness support
  • Global travel insurance and emergency assistance
  • Daily meals allowance
Full Job Description
About This Role:

Join our team as the Project Controls Manager and take ownership of the cost and schedule integrity of every Engineered to Order (ETO) manufacturing program we run. You will build and enforce the baseline discipline that lets the PMO forecast credibly - a common WBS, a common schedule structure, a common cost taxonomy, and a reporting layer that ties production reality back to the numbers we quoted.

This is the analytical backbone of the PMO. You will not run projects; you will make the people who run projects measurably better at it. You'll own the estimate-to-baseline handoff, the cost-to-complete reporting layer, and the monthly program economics review that keeps both manufacturing sectors honest about where their programs actually stand.

The role is deliberately cross-sector. You'll work across Spark MDC, PDC buildings, low- and medium-voltage switchgear, and switchboard lines - and you will be the person who can say, with evidence, where a program actually stands. Your work directly impacts our ability to deploy infrastructure that computes from sustainable, renewable and/or stranded energy sources.

We are seeking a deeply analytical professional with a proven background in cost engineering, project controls, or manufacturing finance, and the credibility to hold project managers and operations leaders to a standard. This is a full-time position.

What You'll Be Working On:
  • Baseline Standards and Governance: Establish and maintain PMO-wide standards for cost and schedule baselining, including a common WBS and cost code structure across both manufacturing sectors.
  • Baseline Change Control Standard: Define the cross-sector standard for how a cost or schedule baseline may be revised - what triggers a re-baseline, who approves it, and how the original commitment stays visible after the change. Audit compliance across both sectors; the sector managers run quality assurance on their own schedules, you own the rule they run it against.
  • Estimate-to-Baseline Handoff: Validate that awarded scope, quoted hours, material costs, and margin assumptions are correctly loaded before a program starts - this is where most margin is won or lost.
  • Budget Reporting and Forecasting: Build the cost-to-complete and estimate-at-completion tooling that project managers run their projects on, and make it good enough that keeping it current is the easy path. PMs own their project numbers - committed cost, earned production, and forecast at completion - and you partner with them on the standard and cadence that keeps those numbers trustworthy, coaching where the model is confusing and flagging where it's drifting. At the portfolio level you're the consumer: roll the data up, work variances through with the responsible PM, and bring leadership a forecast the whole team stands behind.
  • Monthly Program Economics Review: Own the standing monthly economics review across both sectors - you set the calendar, publish the pre-read, run the meeting, and hold the drumbeat month over month so it survives busy quarters. Each sector manager brings a signed cost-to-complete position for every active program; you validate the model, challenge the operational assumptions behind it, and drive variance and recovery items to a documented owner and date. Track closure of prior-month actions so the review compounds rather than resets.
  • SOP and Tooling Ownership: Own the SOPs and tooling that make the review executable - the forecast submission artifact and its sign-off, the variance and recovery log, the pre-read package, and the reporting templates PMs work in. Write the procedures, version them, train the PMs on them, and revise them when the process outgrows the tool. If a control only exists in someone's spreadsheet, it is not yet a control.
  • Reporting and Dashboard Tooling: Build and maintain the data layer and reporting tooling behind the sector executive dashboards. The sector managers own their dashboards and the story they tell; you own the pipeline underneath - the source-of-truth queries, the refresh automation, and the reconciliation that makes both sectors' numbers comparable.
  • Data Integrity and ERP Governance: Own cost data hygiene across the PMO - cost code discipline, work order structure, WIP accuracy, and BOM-to-job-cost alignment. Audit for drift, drive correction with the responsible team, and keep bad inputs from reaching the forecast.
  • Portfolio Risk and Contingency Management: Track contingency and risk allowance across the active portfolio - what was carried at baseline, what has been drawn, and what remains against known exposure. Give leadership a defensible view of how much cushion is actually left.
  • PM Enablement and Training: Onboard every new project manager onto the controls toolset and reporting standard, run refreshers as the tooling changes, and build the cost and schedule competency of the PM population over time. Adoption is a deliverable, not a hope.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Finance and Accounting on revenue recognition inputs, work-in-process valuation, and variance explanation. Support Estimating with actualized cost feedback so future bids reflect real production performance.
  • Post-Mortem Analysis: Lead financial and schedule post-mortem analysis at project close-out, and publish trend findings back into estimating and operations.


What You'll Bring to the Team:
  • Project Controls Experience: Minimum of 6+ years in project controls, cost engineering, or manufacturing finance, including work in an ETO or make-to-order production environment.
  • Bachelor of Science: BS in Engineering, Construction Management, Finance, Accounting, or a closely related quantitative field.
  • Cost Management: Demonstrated ownership of cost baselines, earned value or equivalent progress measurement, and estimate-at-completion forecasting.
  • Advanced Modeling Capability: Advanced Google Sheets modeling including dynamic cost structures, sensitivity analysis, and large-scale data reconciliation.
  • Technical Proficiency: Hands-on ERP experience for job costing, work orders, and BOM-level cost roll-up. Proficiency in Google Suite and Microsoft Office.
  • Schedule Development & Management: Strong scheduling literacy across Smartsheet, MS Project, Monday.com or Primavera P6 - with the ability to audit and correct schedule logic.
  • Team Collaboration: Proven ability to influence project managers and operations leaders without direct authority.
  • Safety and Compliance: This position is designated a safety-sensitive position and/or is located in a safety-sensitive facility. Drug and alcohol program participation is required.


Bonus Points:
  • Experience with Acumatica
  • Experience supporting both discrete manufacturing and construction-style project accounting.
  • Power BI, Looker Studio, or Python-based reporting automation.
  • Experience using AI-assisted analytics to accelerate project controls work - forecast modeling, schedule risk and float analysis, anomaly detection in cost data, or automating reconciliation and reporting.
  • AACE certification (CCP, EVP, PSP) or equivalent.
  • Prior experience standing up a project controls function from scratch.
  • Data Center Construction Experience.
  • MBA in Business, Accounting or Engineering/Project Management is preferred.


Benefits:
  • Competitive compensation and equity packages
  • Restricted Stock Units
  • Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs
  • Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
  • Employer contributions to HSA account
  • Paid parental leave
  • Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability
  • Professional development & tuition reimbursement
  • Mental health & wellness support
  • Commuter benefits (parking & transit)
  • Cell phone stipend
  • 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary
  • Volunteer time off
  • Global travel insurance & emergency assistance
  • Daily meals allowance
  • Additional perks & programs specific to location


Compensation Range

Compensation will be paid in the range of up to $130,000 -$150,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicant's knowledge, education, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data. (#INDMFG)

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