NIF&PS OMST Engineering & Maintenance Manager – Optics Materials Science & Technology (OMST)

LLNL•Livermore, CA

11d•Onsite

About The Position

Are you ready to lead a team advancing world-class optics processing capabilities in support of national security science? The Optics Materials Science & Technology (OMST) team at the National Ignition Facility & Photon Science (NIF&PS) is seeking an Engineering & Maintenance Manager to guide the OMST Engineering team in operations, system upgrades, reliability engineering, and lifecycle sustainment planning. In this role, you will apply your technical expertise and strategic vision to strengthen the foundation of a premier optics processing operation. As the OMST Engineering & Maintenance Manager, you will provide strategic and technical leadership to a multidisciplinary team responsible for designing, upgrading, commissioning, and maintaining specialized optics processing systems at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and off-site vendor locations. You will work closely with OMST teams and collaborate with other programs across the NIF&PS directorate—including NIF Sustainment, NIF Enhanced Yield Capability (EYC), HED & Photon Sciences, and the Department of Defense Technology (DoDT)—to ensure effective planning, execution, and continuous improvement of engineering and maintenance activities. In this role, you will drive long-term sustainment and modernization of critical systems, lead facility upgrades to meet evolving mission needs, and oversee budget planning, resource allocation, and technical direction to maintain and enhance OMST’s operational excellence. This position is part of the Laser Systems Engineering & Operations (LSEO) Division within the Engineering Directorate. You will Lead teams, programs, or functions with a technical focus, operate under broad consultative direction with significant autonomy, use expert knowledge and extensive team leadership experience, and exercise judgment within established policies to monitor workflow, allocate resources, ensure timely completion of projects, and influence and direct high-level strategic plans to achieve objectives while managing organizational and operational impact and attaining long-range goals.

Requirements

Ability to secure and maintain a U.S. DOE Q level security clearance, which requires U.S. citizenship.
Bachelor’s degree in Physics, Engineering, or related technical field, or the equivalent combination of education and related experience.
Extensive experience and demonstrated ability to champion, develop, implement, and lead, innovative, cutting-edge principles and concepts in facility operations.
Extensive technical leadership and management experience directing large, multi-disciplinary technical and operations teams in a highly complex industrial, laboratory, or defense-related environment.
Extensive experience, expert level knowledge and skills, and demonstrated success in strategic planning, resource optimization, and driving innovation in technical settings.
Extensive experience in effectively managing multi-million-dollar budgets, allocating resources strategically, collaborating with leadership to align annual priorities with organizational goals, and applying expert-level knowledge of systems and reliability engineering principles, infrastructure sustainment strategies, and asset management.
Demonstrated extensive experience in facility operations involving cleanliness, stability, controls, and specialized optics processing systems.
Demonstrated expert level skills and extensive experience in successfully resolving highly complex technical issues, tackling unique challenges, and sustaining critical infrastructure.
Expert communication, facilitation, and collaboration skills necessary to effectively present, explain, influence, and advise professional colleagues, senior management, and external collaborators.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Physics, Engineering, or a related technical field, or the equivalent combination of education and related experience.
Expert level experience applying reliability-centered maintenance, failure mode and effects analysis, or fault tree analysis.
Familiarity with safety and quality systems in high-consequence environments.
Experience supporting regulated operations in defense, energy, or national security contexts.
Prior military or civilian nuclear, or naval propulsion program experience.

Responsibilities

Provide strategic technical and operational leadership to a highly skilled, multi-disciplinary team of engineers, technicians, and designers, while establishing, pursuing, and achieving a vision and strategy for reliability, quality, and mission delivery in optics processing.
Lead, execute, and/or coordinate recruiting, hiring, training, career development, and performance and salary management activities as needed to meet programmatic staffing, employee development, and performance and salary related needs, including providing career counseling, mentoring, and technical guidance.
Champion reliability and lifecycle sustainment by developing and applying highly advanced methods in systems engineering, reliability engineering, condition-based maintenance, and asset management for specialized optics processing infrastructure, often influencing, advancing, and setting the standard for best practices beyond the Laboratory.
Ensure the continuous availability, performance, and safety of highly complex optics processing systems, including oversight of laboratory WCDs and other OMST facilities and equipment, and make decisions that determine and drive the success and direction of major projects and programs.
Lead the implementation of upgrades, reliability-centered maintenance, and deployment of new technologies and process improvements for OMST systems and frequently redefine customer requirements and integrate innovative solutions.
Develop and guide long-range strategies to meet current and future OMST facility needs, and collaborate with engineering, project management, and scientific teams to integrate and implement new programs that influence organizational operations and directions.
Identify, perform in-depth analysis, and implement innovative improvements in process, system design, and maintenance approaches that enhance performance, uptime, and total cost of ownership, as well as drive courses of action and provide innovative solutions to highly complex or unusual issues that often represent breakthroughs in facility operations and reliability.
Oversee financial planning and resource allocation for operations and sustainment activities, including a $3M annual procurement budget, meeting key performance, cost, and schedule objectives, and managing and ensuring projects are completed on schedule and within budget.
Mentor engineering staff on LLNL and NIF processes, implement engineering practices for OMST and other NIF&PS program projects, and develop and maintain effective relationships to enable productive interaction and collaboration with off-site vendors and subcontractors for troubleshooting and technical direction.
Perform other duties as assigned.