Design, Commissioning & Startup Safety Engineer, SR WHS Design, Construction & Startup

About the role

As a Senior Design & Startup Safety Program Manager within the Workplace, Health & Safety organization, you will drive safety excellence across new facility launches. You will partner with Site Operations, Engineering, Real Estate, and Procurement teams to ensure every site implements Amazon WHS policies and meets regulatory requirements from day one. This role requires travel up to 75% to conduct site visits, perform risk assessments, and coordinate commissioning activities across multiple facility launches.

Responsibilities

• Drive the safety aspect of design for new building templates and launches across all businesses by coordinating end-to-end lifecycle management of safety in design—from concept review through commissioning.
• Execute standard work across AutoCAD layout evaluations, network-level equipment and process assessments, and coordinate Factory Acceptance Testing.
• Ensure execution of WHS commissioning checklists and validate vendor safety solutions in partnership with engineering teams.
• Analyze safety performance data across buildings to identify design improvements and support strategic recommendations to leadership.
• Apply organizational safety engineering risk assessment methodology including risk tolerances, conduct comprehensive risk assessments, and make recommendations to senior management.
• Apply ergonomics principles to equipment and process design to eliminate risks before operations begin.
• Build trust with Engineering, New Site Project teams, Real Estate, Procurement, and Operations by communicating safety requirements clearly and effectively.
• Support change management processes to embed safety standards into every new system and process across the organization.
• Manage and monitor the WHS start-up plan for new facilities, deep dive trends, and develop proposed action plans for senior leadership.
• Maintain organizational safety engineering risk assessment methodology including risk tolerances and make recommendations to senior management.
• Identify gaps/opportunities in or between regions, processes, and organizations (e.g., workflows, risk assessments, controls) to enable high standards and consistency in application.
• Support the development of solutions that meet Amazon high standards for safety, risk reduction, customer satisfaction, efficiency, scalability, simplicity, and operational excellence.
• Validate vendor proposed technical safety solutions and work in partnership with internal engineering and reliability maintenance teams to ensure right-first-time, legally compliant safety standards for equipment.
• Support business change by effectively influencing change management processes within operations.
• Provide functional working links with Engineering, Reliability and Maintenance Engineering, Procurement, New Build Safety, and Real Estate teams.
• Generate regular technical updates for stakeholders and provide monthly reports on upcoming projects and current in-process schemes with clear analytical measures of status and risk.
• Serve as a WHS mentor and subject matter expert for all launching sites for both WHS site leadership and Operations.
• Review processes and machinery/system safety standards in liaison with Engineering, Reliability and Maintenance Engineering, Procurement, and New Build/Real Estate teams.
• Perform risk assessments on all equipment, including Factory Acceptance Testing of new technologies.
• Provide guidance and design standards to ensure compliance with all applicable local/state/federal regulatory standards and Amazon Safety Policies and Procedures.
• Review and interpret data to develop improvement plans within new processes and conduct safety reviews of all new processes and equipment.
• Develop safety punch list items with all applicable business partners, identifying safety issues and recommendations for short- and long-term resolution.
• Perform Design Reviews with Worldwide Engineering and Ops Engineering in AutoCAD to design in safety features to the building/processes.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of program or project management experience.
• Experience using data and metrics to determine and drive improvements.
• Experience owning program strategy, end-to-end delivery, and communicating results to senior leadership.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Safety, Engineering, or Environmental.

Preferred Qualifications

• 2+ years of driving process improvements experience.
• Master’s degree or MBA in business, operations, human resources, adult education, organizational development, instructional design, or related field.
• Knowledge of general AI tools.
• Experience designing, implementing, and scaling upskilling, apprenticeship, or workforce development programs across large-scale operations or corporate environments, including forecasting workforce needs and leveraging analytics to drive program decisions.