Engineering Program Manager

J H Fletcher & Co•Huntington, WV

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Engineering Program Manager plans, directs, and drives execution of J.H. Fletcher & Co.’s engineering project portfolio, including new product development, machine modernizations, customer-specific designs, and engineering systems implementations. Working as an extension of the Vice President of Engineering, the role sets project priorities and schedules, coordinates engineering work with Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Field Service, Sales, and Information Technology, and resolves cross-departmental issues that delay engineering delivery. The position owns the engineering schedule and works with the Master Scheduler, Inside Sales Manager, and Global Supply Chain Manager, who each own their respective parts of the order-to-delivery process. It serves as the company’s Engineering Program Management Office by establishing how engineering projects are planned, tracked, and reported, and by being accountable for completing engineering work on time. The role manages plans, priorities, schedules, and cross-functional execution; final technical design decisions remain with Engineering leadership and discipline engineers. The position is based at the Huntington, West Virginia plant and is full-time, onsite, with standard office hours that may vary to support project, customer, and cross-functional needs. Work includes an office environment, regular time on the manufacturing floor, and occasional visits to customer sites, potentially including industrial and underground mine sites. Occasional travel of up to 10% is required. Additional hours may be needed to meet project deadlines. Potential exposures include loud, dusty, hot, or cold environments requiring safety precautions and PPE. Physical effort is minimal, with occasional lifting up to 25 pounds and the ability to work at a computer for extended periods and walk the shop floor. The role reports to the Vice President of Engineering. It independently determines project plans, schedules, meeting cadence, project management methods, action-item follow-up, reporting format and content, and when to escalate risks or issues. It recommends portfolio priorities, engineering release commitments, project-request decisions, scope or milestone changes, resource allocation, and process changes for the Vice President of Engineering’s approval. It does not make technical design, production scheduling, customer commitment, sourcing, hiring, disciplinary, or pay decisions assigned to other leaders.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, Information Systems, or a related field.
At least 5 years of experience managing complex projects or programs with cross-functional teams.
Demonstrated ability to plan, prioritize, and deliver multiple concurrent projects.
Ability to lead and influence without direct authority.
Sound judgment in weighing trade-offs among schedule, scope, cost, and risk.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including communication with executives and shop-floor personnel.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and project-management tools such as Azure DevOps, Microsoft Project, or Planner.
Working knowledge of Agile/Scrum and traditional stage-gate project methods.
Ability to manage multiple priorities and shift focus quickly.
Strong organizational and time-management skills.
Capacity for strategic thinking and planning.
Problem-solving skills and decision-making ability.
Ability to understand and communicate technical information.
Capacity to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
Ability to work at a computer for extended periods and walk the shop floor.
Ability to work additional hours as needed to meet project deadlines.
Ability to travel occasionally, up to 10% of the time, to customer sites, suppliers, and test locations.
Ability to perform the job’s physical requirements, including occasional lifting up to 25 pounds and working in environments that may require safety precautions and PPE.

Nice To Haves

Experience in manufacturing, heavy equipment, mining equipment, or industrial products.
Experience with new product development, ERP, PLM, or engineering software implementations.
Experience leading process-improvement or organizational-change initiatives.
Master’s degree, such as an MBA or related field.
PMP, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Certified ScrumMaster, or similar certification.

Responsibilities

Build and own the engineering project portfolio, including project scope, objectives, milestones, resource needs, and dependencies.
Recommend project priorities, sequencing, and resource allocation to the Vice President of Engineering based on business value, customer commitments, capacity, and risk.
Evaluate new project requests and recommend whether to accept, defer, or decline them and on what terms.
Maintain a current, consolidated view of engineering work for leadership decision-making.
Develop project plans and schedules, and establish milestones and deliverables with project teams.
Monitor progress against plans, analyze schedule variance, and determine corrective actions.
Identify risks and bottlenecks early and develop mitigation plans.
Escalate significant schedule, scope, cost, or resource issues to the Vice President of Engineering with a recommended course of action.
Lead cross-functional project teams from concept through design, procurement, manufacturing, testing, release, and field deployment.
Negotiate engineering commitments and handoffs with other departments, including Field Service and Information Technology.
Resolve conflicts over engineering priorities or resources and escalate conflicts that cannot be resolved at the project level.
Hold project team members accountable for commitments and action items.
Commit engineering release dates for drawings, bills of material, and long-lead item lists, and communicate them to the Master Scheduler.
Maintain a shared list of engineering release dates and notify the Master Scheduler as soon as a release is at risk.
Meet with the Master Scheduler at least weekly to review upcoming releases, schedule slips, and long-lead items.
Provide engineering lead times, design scope, and engineering status for quotes and customer orders requiring custom or modified engineering.
Review incoming orders with engineering content with the Inside Sales Manager to confirm requirements are complete before engineering work begins.
Notify the Inside Sales Manager promptly when an engineering delay could affect a customer commitment, and track customer-requested engineering changes and their schedule impact.
Provide long-lead item lists and engineering release dates early enough for sourcing and purchasing to support the production schedule.
Build supplier lead times and sourcing constraints into engineering project schedules.
Coordinate engineering input on component substitutions, supplier qualification, and obsolescence issues.
Notify the Global Supply Chain Manager of design changes affecting parts already on order or in inventory.
Design, implement, and continuously improve Engineering project-management practices, including intake, planning, status reporting, stage reviews, and project close-out.
Lead implementation of engineering systems, software, and process-improvement initiatives, such as electrical design software deployment and product development process improvements.
Analyze recurring causes of delay and recommend changes to workflows, handoffs, or organizational practices.
Select and administer Engineering project-management tools, such as Azure DevOps, Microsoft Project, or Planner.
Prepare portfolio dashboards, status reports, and executive summaries for Engineering leadership and company executives.
Facilitate project kickoffs, stage-gate reviews, planning sessions, and retrospectives.
Support company strategic planning activities as assigned by the Vice President of Engineering or President, including preparing materials and facilitating sessions.
Comply with safety guidelines and regulations, complete additional training as directed, and perform other duties as assigned.
Establish a complete engineering project inventory and performance baseline within the first 90 days.
Track performance using schedule and milestone delivery, engineering release timeliness, project cycle time, overdue action items and stalled projects, reporting accuracy and timeliness, and stakeholder feedback.