Director of Engineering

South Dakota Science and Technology Authority•Lead, SD

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Engineering provides direct, hands-on engineering support and also leads the Engineering Department staff in the planning, development, and oversight for the implementation and rehabilitation of facilities and infrastructure for SURF. The Director’s efforts include management of design, construction, and engineering support to operations activities required to develop, operate, and maintain SURF’s surface and underground infrastructure. The Director also coordinates engineering support to specific facility and experiment design and construction efforts. The Engineering Department is within the Operations Division and includes the Hoists and Shafts Department, Information Technology Department, Surface and Utilities Department and Underground Operations Department. All five departments interact on a routine basis.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in an engineering-related field such as mechanical, mining, civil or electrical engineering is required.
Professional Engineer (PE) is required.
At least 15 years of experience and understanding in all aspects of engineering and project management including: major technical system development, mining engineering, underground tunneling and excavation, design, construction, and operation of research facilities and laboratories, site planning and architectural project management, engineering project management for complex industrial facilities, large, state or federally funded facility construction projects, or construction management is required.
Experience in use of computer-based tools such as Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) is required.

Nice To Haves

An advanced engineering degree with an emphasis in mechanical, mining, civil or electrical engineering is highly desired.
Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI) is desired.
Experience in scheduling software packages such as Microsoft Project or ORACLE Primavera is desired.

Responsibilities

Planning and implementing projects involving new facility and infrastructure construction and rehabilitation
Provides direct engineering and oversight of projects as a project engineer and/or manager based on the Director’s technical expertise and workload of the Engineering Department staff to achieve the SDSTA mission.
Routinely engages with other department managers and engineering staff to ensure appropriate engineering support throughout the facility.
Prioritizes projects and maintains project priorities and schedules. Coordinates priorities and project budgets with Top Management.
Reviews, evaluates and approves project scopes of work. Endorses budget requests and cost estimates, baselines, and supports change control processes for projects.
Negotiates commitments with the SURF Science experiments with approval of the Deputy Director for Operations and SURF Laboratory Director, as required. Works with SURF Science community to define project requirements and develop agreements for engineering support and management of science project-related work.
Oversees the preparation of project documentation including scope definition, work breakdown structures (WBS), estimates, project schedules, and selection of project acquisition strategies and preparation of contract documentation.
Ensures the Environment, Safety and Health (ESH) and Quality Assurance requirements are properly implemented and well-coordinated with both internal staff and external contractors.
Reviews work to ensure deadlines are met and projects are constructed according to plans. Reviews contract change orders and justifications for action.
Monitors and evaluates the performance of design and construction contractors including oversight of field inspections of work in progress.
Verifies project completion, prepares final documentation and ensures projects are closed out.
Provides regular project status reports and department status reports.
Working with other departments, coordinates contractor priority when projects or parts of projects cannot be worked on simultaneously.
Reviewing and validating facility designs
Oversees the compilation and analysis of project data to ensure valid preliminary engineering data and sound technical decision-making approaches are used for project development.
Reviews detailed project plans, designs, and recommends changes to ensure cost effective, constructible and safe projects.
Determines feasibility and technology maturity of proposed products and equipment to be used.
Establishing acquisition strategies and managing procurement and bid-letting processes
In coordination with SDSTA Contracts and Procurement Manager, determines the appropriate acquisition strategies within funding agency requirements.
Supports the Contracts and Procurement team in establishing procurement procedures and schedules.
Oversees preparation of requests for proposals and ensures contractors are notified to ensure that work is competed widely and fairly in accordance with SDSTA ethical standards and funding agency requirements.
Works with the Contracts team to ensure source selections are well organized and supports the highest ethical standards to efficiently select competent contractors and consultants.
Directing day-to-day Engineering Department activities
Oversees the creation and maintenance of staffing plans, hiring, training and management of staff.
Ensures work allocated to specific projects is performed to the satisfaction of that specific project manager. Note that a significant portion of the Engineering Department workload is allocated to the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) Project and the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment for the foreseeable future.
Reviews and approves leave requests and time forms.
Maintains consistent and reliable attendance.
Performs other job-related duties as assigned.