Senior Manager, Rocket Engine Avionics & Control Systems

Blue Origin•Huntsville, AL

About The Position

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight! This role is part of the Blue Origin Engines business unit, where our focus is the design, development, manufacturing, and testing of engines and propulsion systems. Built for multiple uses, our family of engines is powering the next generation of rockets for commercial, civil, national security, and human spaceflight. As the leader of a dedicated team of engineers, you will hold a critical role in ensuring the successful delivery of the control subsystem of the engine (controller hardware, software, control logic, instrumentation, and harnessing). In this role you will play a pivotal role in project delivery as the single threaded leader for delivering all aspects of your assigned scope. You will manage project execution, ensuring scrappy and cost-effective execution while maintaining a tight grip on all project deliverables needed to meet program objectives. Identifying and mitigating risks are critical tasks, and you'll need to effectively communicate these to program and business leadership when the appropriate solutions are beyond your immediate control. This role requires seamless collaboration with Enterprise functions such as Operations and Supply Chain to maintain the program cost, execution, and delivery objectives. This critical role oversees the technical quality of the control subsystem. This entails developing a robust technical plan to ensure the integration of all engine control subsystem products meets negotiated customer requirements and adheres to internal design criteria, including producibility, product cost, life cycle cost, and other key product attributes squarely aligned to lowering the cost of access to space. This will require you to define both programmatic and technical needs of each individual product such that product leaders can develop and deliver a compliant product on time. You'll be accountable for managing complex interdisciplinary engineering tasks and ensuring cohesive teamwork that leads to overall system success. Quality assurance is paramount, and you will be responsible for ensuring that all engineering outputs, including documentation and analyses, meet both internal and customer standards. Providing clear technical direction and support to the team will be crucial in achieving these goals. You will be responsible for the people management aspect of your team, covering the full employee lifecycle from hiring and development to stringent & thoughtful performance management. Hiring the right talent, fostering their growth, and ensuring they are well-coached is essential for maintaining a high-functioning team. You'll be actively engaged in creating a positive and productive team culture that adheres to all required HR processes and policies. We are looking for someone to apply their technical expertise, leadership skills, and commitment to quality to positively impact safe human spaceflight. Passion for our mission and vision is required!

Requirements

Proven track record of leading and managing teams to deliver complex engineering subsystem or products.
Minimum of a B.S. degree in Engineering or technical field, or in lieu of a technical degree, must show significant demonstrated experience leading teams designing/ developing complex engineered products.
8+ years of experience in a relevant engineering field, with significant experience in avionics systems and/or control systems.
2+ years of project management experience.
Basic knowledge across relevant engineering disciplines, including requirements negotiation, design, analysis, manufacturing, testing and vehicle integration.
Strong communication skills, with the ability to effectively communicate across all levels of the organization.

Nice To Haves

Experience with resource/budget management and reporting.
Experience with Agile, IMP-level scheduling, risk management, configuration management, requirements management processes.
Demonstrated ability to lead change and drive continuous improvement.
Familiarity with industry-leading tools such as Simulink, Jules, Windchill, AMESIM or other physics based modeling tools, .
Hands-on experience with the development lifecycle of avionics and control subsystems.
Experience in planning and executing integration and test programs for avionics and control subsystems.
Proven ability to develop and maintain product and subsystem roadmaps.

Responsibilities

Subsystem Definition, Integration, and Delivery: Manage your project scope by ensuring scrappy and cost-effective execution while maintaining a tight grip on the project deliverables needed to meet program objectives.
Identify and manage technical and programmatic risks/opportunities. This includes technical, scope (i.e., cost and schedule), asset and safety risks and opportunities specific to program and project execution.
Risk management includes identifying, documenting, communicating, developing mitigation plans and collaborating with your peers & program leaders to drive outcomes to program acceptable levels.
Coordinate and partner with Enterprise functions to drive subsystem cost and meet delivery objectives.
Track and manage your team execution, and subsystem cost/life cycle cost.
Create the framework used to develop and drive collection of project data and use this data to inform & monitor key project metrics
Technical Leadership: Develop and oversee the technical plan, ensuring it aligns to both negotiated customer requirements (vehicle and engine) and internal design criteria.
Own the overall lifecycle of your assigned product scope from development through qualification/ rate production and successful cost-optimized commercial flight operations.
Manage interdisciplinary engineering tasks for overall system success.
Ensure the quality of engineering outputs, providing technical direction and guidance to the team.
Support requirement decomposition and allocation, systems engineering, technical design, analysis, and verification/validation – including strong management and bi-directional alignment of interfaces between customers and project technical efforts.
Functional Management: Oversee the full lifecycle of your employees including talent acquisition, employee development, and when needed, performance management.
Foster an environment of continuous growth and learning, ensuring compliance with HR processes and policies.

Benefits

Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability, 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%, and an Education Support Program.
Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.

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