OverviewThe Project Engineering and Manufacturing Senior Manager provides strategic leadership and direction for the Project Engineering and Manufacturing Organization supporting the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) Operations Contract. The position is responsible for establishing organizational priorities, ensuring disciplined project execution, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement, and ensuring compliance with NASA, Flight Operations Directorate (FOD), and contract requirements.
This position provides leadership to Project Managers, Engineers, Manufacturing personnel, and Technical Specialists responsible for the design, fabrication, installation, testing, and lifecycle management of NBL Critical Systems, trainers, mockups, facilities, and supporting infrastructure.
The Senior Manager is responsible for developing organizational capability, mentoring project leadership, driving process adherence, and ensuring projects are executed using disciplined project management principles consistent with V2X, NASA and FOD expectations.
ResponsibilitiesOrganizational Leadership- Provide overall leadership for the Project Engineering and Manufacturing Organization.
- Establish organizational priorities aligned with NBL Operations objectives.
- Develop a culture emphasizing accountability, ownership, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.
- Mentor and develop Project Managers, Engineers, Manufacturing personnel, and future leaders.
- Establish performance expectations and ensure effective workload balancing across the organization.
Project Management Leadership- Ensure projects are planned and executed using disciplined project management principles.
- Oversee project scope, schedule, budget, technical performance, and risk management.
- Ensure project execution follows V2X and NASA project lifecycle philosophies and approved organizational processes.
- Review project status and intervene when schedule, cost, or technical risks require management attention.
- Ensure lessons learned and continuous improvement initiatives are incorporated into future work.
- Establish and oversee a standardized project governance framework that defines project lifecycle requirements, management reviews, decision gates, and reporting expectations.
- Ensure project managers utilize standardized planning, scheduling, risk management, and project controls processes across all projects.
- Monitor organizational project portfolio performance through objective metrics and KPIs to proactively identify emerging risks and facilitate timely leadership intervention.
Process Governance- Champion adherence to approved procedures, work instructions, engineering processes, configuration management, and quality standards.
- Ensure compliance with contract requirements, NASA policies, FOD expectations, safety requirements, and applicable engineering standards.
- Drive standardization of project execution methodologies across the organization.
- Lead implementation of process improvements that improve efficiency, quality, and execution consistency.
- Establish and maintain a disciplined project intake, prioritization, and resource assignment process to ensure projects are properly scoped, evaluated, prioritized, and staffed based on organizational capacity and strategic objectives.
- Define standardized project governance requirements, including reporting expectations, reviews, and documentation, commensurate with project size, complexity, risk, and customer impact.
- Develop and implement objective Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and project health metrics that provide measurable visibility into project performance, enabling data-driven management decisions while minimizing reliance on subjective assessments.
- Implement project controls that provide early identification of schedule, cost, scope, technical, and resource risks through standardized monitoring, performance metrics, and management reviews.
- Establish project stage gates and escalation criteria requiring formal senior management review and approval when predefined project health thresholds, technical risks, or execution concerns are exceeded, ensuring leadership visibility and timely corrective action.
- Continuously evaluate organizational project management processes and implement best practices that improve planning accuracy, execution discipline, resource utilization, and overall project delivery performance.
Customer Interface- Serve as the primary organizational interface with NASA engineering and project stakeholders.
- Build collaborative working relationships across NBL Operations, NASA organizations, subcontractors, and external customers.
- Represent the organization during technical reviews, management reviews, design reviews, audits, and readiness assessments.
Engineering and Manufacturing Oversight- Provide executive oversight for engineering design, manufacturing, fabrication, installation, testing, and maintenance activities.
- Ensure engineering products meet technical, safety, quality, and schedule requirements.
- Balance technical risk, operational requirements, and project priorities across multiple simultaneous efforts.
Personnel Development- Recruit, mentor, develop, and retain high-performing personnel.
- Foster cross-training and succession planning.
- Conduct performance management activities and career development planning.
- Promote a collaborative, respectful, and professional work environment.
QualificationsRequired Skills:- Bachelor's degree in Engineering or related technical discipline.
- Minimum 15 years of progressively responsible engineering and project management experience.
- Minimum 7 years leading multidisciplinary engineering and technical organizations.
- Demonstrated experience managing complex engineering projects from concept through implementation.
- Strong understanding of project controls, scheduling, budgeting, risk management, and configuration management.
- Demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing technical organizations.
- This position requires US Citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a NASA Public Trust Level security clearance
Desired Skills:- Experience supporting NASA or other government technical programs.
- Familiarity with NASA Flight Operations Directorate culture and expectations.
- Working knowledge of NASA engineering lifecycle processes.
- Experience leading manufacturing organizations supporting engineering development.
- PMP certification preferred.
- Systems Engineering experience desirable.
- Experience leading continuous improvement initiatives.
Desired Leadership Competencies- Servant leadership
- Accountability and ownership
- Strategic thinking
- Organizational development
- Team building
- Effective communication
- Coaching and mentoring
- Decision making
- Conflict resolution
- Process discipline
- Customer engagement
- Continuous improvement mindset
Key Success Measures- Consistent on-time project execution
- Improved schedule and budget performance
- Increased organizational process adherence
- Improved quality of engineering products
- Development of project management capability throughout the organization
- Successful execution of NASA and contract requirements
- High customer confidence and satisfaction
- Improved workforce engagement and leadership development
