Senior Engineering Project Specialist/Engineering Project Manager I/II

Overview:

Are you someone who is passionate, motivated, and driven to make a difference?  If so, MSA Safety is the perfect fit for your career. 

 

At MSA, SAFETY is who we are AND it is what we do.  We are a purpose-driven company committed to deploying innovation and technology to deliver on our Mission to help protect people and assets all around the world.  We continue to be relentless in our pursuit of solving our customers greatest problems so they can go home safe each and every day. 

 

Are you in?  Read on for more details about this particular role.

Responsibilities:

Tactical Project Management

• Lead cross-functional projects of significant strategic impact, adeptly deploying project management expertise to ensure delivery of project deliverables that meet or exceed customer expectations.
• Effectively execute processes across initiation, planning, managing, monitoring/controlling, and closing projects, including schedule, scope, budget, quality, resources, and risks.
• Measure and analyze project performance using appropriate tools and techniques to monitor the progress of the project, identify and quantify variance, and perform any required corrective actions.
• Develop functional area knowledge at a detail that allows thorough evaluation of risk, drives effective decision making, and respectfully challenges team.
• Deliver clear, concise, and accurate complex project reports or documents and develop impactful presentations meant to inform or persuade both internal and external audiences across verticals.
• Drive continuous improvement by embracing and employing MBS, actively and continually seek opportunities for process optimization, standardization, and cost savings.
• Regularly share new ideas, lessons learned, and best practices with the team to foster continuous improvement of future project execution.

Project Team Leadership

• Build, manage, and empower cross-functional, geographically diverse teams to achieve cohesiveness, collaboration, and high performance an environment that encourages trust, transparency, and accountability.
• Manage project stakeholders, driving engagement and tactfully communicating audience-appropriate level of detail across various levels of the organization to ensure alignment of expectations with project requirements.
• Navigate team challenges and mediate project disputes to create open communication and a productive environment to facilitate aligned resolutions.

Facilitate and Manage Change

• Proactively manage change, identifying processes, structures, or job functions impacted, developing management plans that minimize disruption and encourage feedback, and promoting acceptance and adoption.
• Facilitate the transition and sustainment of executed initiatives, ensuring stakeholder alignment and process ownership after deployment.

Qualifications:

Project Manager I

• Minimum of 7 years of project management experience in cross-functional and/or geographically diverse New Product Development projects from discovery through deployment with proven track record of successful delivery and subsequent value realization.
• Minimum of 10 years experience working within R&D as an individual contributor, and/or project manager.
• Experience working within multi-discipline engineering teams including mechanical, electrical and software.
• CAP-M or significant progress towards PMP® (Project Management Professional).
• Experience managing projects through formal Stage‑Gate New Product Development process, including design reviews, technical readiness reviews, and release gating.
• Working knowledge of mechanical design processes: tolerance development, prototyping, tooling / production methodologies, etc.
• Familiarity with electronics development:
  • PCB build cycles, firmware integration, debugging workflows, and similar
• Understanding of software development methodologies
• Ability to understand and communicate system architecture, interface dependencies, and integration risks.
• Highly developed emotional intelligence with a leadership mindset to navigate project team challenges, establish trust, enhance collaboration, build relationships, drive engagement, ensure alignment, and influence without direct authority.
• Advanced project management acumen needed to adapt to complex project environments, solve ambiguous problems, and drive strategic decision-making.
• Advanced knowledge of, and experience implementing, project management methodologies and strategies to effectively and efficiently manage stakeholders, quality, schedule, scope, budget, resources, and risks.
• Advanced capability in technical risk quantification, scenario modeling, and mitigation planning.
• Ability to lead teams in developing and tracking product technical risk registers.
• Skilled at proactively and strategically communicating to inform and collaborate with project teams and stakeholders on project progress, milestones, and potential hurdles.
• Executive presence and experience working directly with senior leaders, including ability to prepare and confidently, succinctly, and tactfully present.
• Understanding of change management expertise necessary to facilitate the adoption, functional ownership, and sustainment of deployed projects.
• Strong customer focus, with ability to support driving tasks to completion to ensure on-time delivery while meeting or exceeding expectations.
• Strong time management and organization ability to prioritize tasks, manage individual backlog, and complete tasks on time.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including formal presentation skills and ability to tailor messaging to audience.

 

Education Required:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering Discipline

Experience Preferred:

• PMP
• Experience with Agile Development
• Experience with SharePoint, Tempus, Miro, Teams, Atlassian (Confluence and Jira), SAP and MS Project

Education/Skills Preferred:

• MBA and/or MS in Engineering Discipline
• Displays integrity and intellectual curiosity.

Qualifications Note:

• This position is available at three different career levels based upon experience, education, etc.:
  
  • Sr. Staff Engineering Project Specialist - minimum 5 years of project management / engineering experience.
  • Engineering Project Manager I - minimum 7 years of project management / engineering experience.
    Master's degree may be substituted for up to 2 years of relevant experience.  PMP Required.
  • Engineering Project Manager II - minimum 9 years of project management / engineering experience.
    Master's degree may be substituted for up to 2 years of relevant experience.  PMP Required.

 

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