The Opportunity
At Leonardo, we have a fantastic new opportunity for a Project Engineering Lead. Leonardo is a global high-tech company and one of the key players in Aerospace, Defence and Security. Headquartered in Italy, Leonardo has over 45,000 employees, of which 7,000 are based in the UK.
We have an exciting opportunity for a Project Engineering Lead within the Special Projects IPT (Integrated Project Team), part of the Communications & Force Protection Business Area within Integrated Sensing and Protection. The role is for a Project Engineering Lead to lead and manage elements of the engineering work within this IPT relating to a range of highly specialised communications equipment based around Software Defined Radios, with a significant focus on Mechanical and Electronics aspects.
Within this IPT, the projects are diverse and exciting. There is a portfolio of work from core products that have been in service for many years, requiring support alongside forward looking developments, technology demonstrators and research projects. With customer intimacy and close collaboration with other organisations across the industry, we work to achieve a market leading position. The opportunity to be involved as a Project Engineering Lead represents a chance to be at the heart of a range of technologies and exciting projects across the full engineering lifecycle.
Project Engineering Leads are responsible for the total engineering activity undertaken on a project or portfolio of projects and so manage cross-disciplined engineering teams. The Project Engineering Lead is tasked to ensure that the engineering team delivers a solution that is compliant with the customer technical requirements; contractual requirements; and legislative requirements. Working closely with Project Manager, the Project Engineering Lead must effectively plan and manage the engineering effort within projects from a performance, schedule and cost perspective.
Reporting to a Project Engineering Manager, the Project Engineering Lead contributes to the monthly engineering governance cycle through preparation of engineering status reports. Project Engineering Leads build strong relationships with Engineering Functional Leads to ensure the resourcing plans for their projects are realistic and any issues arising are resolved swiftly. Project Engineering Leads play a key role in business winning activities, coordinating the collection of engineering costs, preparation of engineering plans and holding engineering bid reviews.
The role requires a candidate who is self-motivated, proactive and enthusiastic, with strong leadership and communication skills. The ability to foster and develop effective working relationships is key to ensure engineers perform to the levels required of the projects. A strong commercial and business awareness is also essential to ensure that the engineering effort can be managed in the correct context for each given project.
What you will do
- Project Engineering Leads are responsible for the management of multi-disciplined engineering teams across multiple projects. Working closely with Project Managers, they are responsible for delivery of the overall engineering output against time, cost and performance budgets.
- Project Engineering Leads are responsible for generating clear and relevant engineering plans, establishing key milestones and identifying risks, opportunities and interdependencies.
- Project Engineering Leads are responsible for reviewing the current engineering positions on projects, and adapting plans as required to mitigate risks to either cost, schedule or performance budgets.
- Project Engineering Leads are responsible for preparation and communication of monthly engineering status reports for each of their assigned projects into their line manager, the Project Engineering Manager.
- Project Engineering Leads are responsible for the coordination of engineering input into bids as part of the business winning process.
- This role sits on the multi-functional management team of the Land Communications business area, representing engineering on that team at weekly and monthly progress and reporting meetings.
What we are looking for
The following skills and experience are required:
- Educated to a degree level in an engineering-related subject (essential)
- Previous experience of managing and/or leading multi-disciplined engineering teams (essential)
- Strong understanding and proven track record of engineering lifecycles and processes (essential)
- An appreciation of RF and equipment designs (desirable)
- An appreciation of supporting products through manufacture both low and high volume manufacture (desirable)
- Experience of working within the defence industry (desirable)