Sr. Project Specialist

Overview

A Sr. Project Specialist is a highly experienced professional with extensive hands-on experience leading large, complex engineering and manufacturing projects. The Sr. Project Manager is considered an authority in project execution, stakeholder management, risk mitigation, and organizational leadership, with demonstrated proficiency in managing multiple concurrent projects and guiding project teams through highly complex challenges.

The Sr. Project Specialist provides leadership beyond individual project execution by mentoring project managers, driving continuous improvement initiatives, and influencing project management best practices across the organization.

Responsibilities & Activities

Project Delivery

• Lead execution of large, complex, high-risk, and strategically important projects involving multiple disciplines and stakeholders.
• Drive consistent application of project methodologies and best practices across assigned projects and teams.
• Influence the strategic direction of project development and deployment activities.
• Facilitate clear project communication and alignment among internal and external stakeholders, including executive-level contacts.
• Ensure schedule, budget, scope, contractual, and quality compliance with established project requirements.
• Coordinate activities of development teams, subcontractors, suppliers, and customer stakeholders.
• Manage resource assignments and collaborate with management regarding workload balancing and organizational priorities.
• Track and report project progress, issues, forecasts, cost estimates, risks, and key performance indicators.
• Resolve escalated project issues and lead recovery planning for projects experiencing budget, schedule, scope, or technical challenges.
• Provide leadership across multiple concurrent projects and project teams.

Front-end Engineering and Commercial

• Assess client change requests and generate project change orders based on engineering estimates.
• Maintain comprehensive project risk assessments, mitigation strategies, and contingency plans.
• Support project pursuit activities through proposal reviews, project strategy development, estimating input, and execution planning.
• Participate in contract reviews and support negotiations involving complex project requirements.
• Serve as the primary account liaison during project implementation and support senior-level customer communications.
• Guide customer stakeholders through project planning, prioritization, and implementation strategies.
• Support organizational efforts to improve project profitability and customer satisfaction.

Quality

• Confirm solutions are developed in compliance with established quality standards, industry best practices, and system safety conventions.
• Produce or review testing protocols and other quality planning documentation.
• Ensure quality compliance through project gate reviews and deliverable approvals.
• Lead project closeout meetings, lessons-learned reviews, and subsequent quality analysis.
• Coordinate with Technical Leads to manage project scope control.
• Serve as an escalation point for project governance, quality concerns, and process compliance issues.
• Promote continuous improvement of project management processes, standards, tools, and reporting.

Leadership

• Mentor and develop Project Managers, Project Engineers, and other team members.
• Provide coaching and guidance regarding project planning, stakeholder management, communication, and leadership development.
• Provide 360-degree performance feedback to management for project team members.
• Contribute to knowledge transfer by developing training material, participating in onboarding, and supporting professional development.
• Lead or participate in pillar initiatives, workstream teams, and organizational improvement efforts.
• Support development and implementation of project management policies, procedures, and best practices.
• Foster collaboration and alignment across departments and project teams.

Knowledge & Experience

• Extensive knowledge of project management techniques, methodologies, and best practices.
• Demonstrated success leading large, multidisciplinary engineering and manufacturing projects.
• Proven experience managing projects with significant budget, schedule, technical, contractual, and stakeholder complexity.
• Professional experience leading technical teams through complex problem-solving activities.
• Broad knowledge of manufacturing, automation, industrial controls, and information systems.
• Advanced understanding of project planning, risk management, forecasting, scope management, change management, and project controls.
• Proven experience coordinating groups with diverse technical backgrounds and organizational responsibilities.
• Strong understanding of quality systems and quality management techniques.
• Experience mentoring project managers and developing project leadership capabilities in others.
• Familiarity with all aspects of a manufacturing ecosystem (ISA-95 model: Levels 0-4).

Key Competencies, Skills & Abilities

• Strong leadership skills including decision making, effective communication, coordination, scheduling, and negotiating for win-win solutions.
• Executive-level verbal and written communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to influence stakeholders at all organizational levels.
• Strategic thinking with strong business acumen.
• Advanced conflict resolution and negotiation capabilities.
• Proven ability to analyze complex situations and make sound decisions under pressure.
• High focus on prioritization and efficient management of multiple projects and competing demands.
• Ability to lead through ambiguity, organizational change, and critical project conditions.
• Commitment to professional development, knowledge building, and continuous improvement.
• Ability to travel as required for project implementation and customer support activities.

Education

• S. Degree in Engineering, Technology, Business, or a related discipline.
• Minimum 10 years of progressively responsible project leadership experience preferred.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification preferred.