Senior Manager, Engineering PMO & Capital Projects

About the role

You will join an organization investing in its manufacturing capabilities, automation, operational excellence, and future growth. This role provides the opportunity to help mature PMO practices, improve capital planning and project execution, and create greater consistency across multiple manufacturing facilities. You will partner closely with engineering, operations, maintenance, finance, and business leaders while remaining directly involved in project delivery.

Your impact

• Strengthening PMO governance, stage-gate processes, project controls, and portfolio reporting.
• Supporting annual and multi-year capital planning aligned with our 5-year strategic plan.
• Directly managing 2–3 large, complex capital projects.
• Improving visibility to project schedules, budgets, risks, resources, dependencies, and key decisions.
• Helping standardize engineering and project execution practices across facilities.
• Supporting automation, labor optimization, reliability, cost reduction, and operational improvement initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex capital projects from concept, business case, and approval through design, installation, commissioning, and closeout.
• Manage project scope, schedule, budget, financial forecasts, risks, vendors, contractors, and resources.
• Coordinate capital planning, prioritization, budgeting, forecasting, and portfolio reviews.
• Develop project plans, business cases, cost estimates, schedules, risk assessments, and approval documentation.
• Monitor project financial performance, commitments, change orders, ROI, and forecasts.
• Partner with operations, maintenance, engineering, and facility leaders to improve project execution and engineering standards.
• Provide hands-on coaching and direction to project engineers and project resources.
• Establish clear expectations, deliverables, KPIs, and accountability.
• Use lessons learned, root cause analysis, project reviews, and PMO metrics to continuously improve execution.

What makes this role exciting

• You will have the opportunity to help strengthen the processes, tools, governance, and operating rhythm behind how capital projects are planned and executed, while personally leading critical projects.
• You will work across multiple facilities and functions, giving you visibility into both immediate manufacturing priorities and longer-term capital strategy.

Ideal candidate

• Enjoy being both a PMO leader and hands-on project executor.
• Have personally led complex capital projects and can clearly demonstrate measurable results in safety, cost, schedule, reliability, productivity, or operational performance.
• Can create structure in evolving environments while building strong relationships with engineering, operations, maintenance, finance, and business leaders.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a related technical field.
• 15+ years of engineering, project management, or capital project experience within manufacturing, industrial, food production, or a related environment.
• 3–5+ years of leadership, people management, or project team leadership experience.
• Demonstrated experience directly managing large, complex capital projects.
• Experience supporting capital planning and multi-project portfolio management.
• Strong project controls and financial management capabilities.
• Experience supporting multi-site manufacturing operations.
• Formal project management training; PMP certification preferred.
• Ability to travel approximately 15%.
• Experience with automation, process optimization, labor reduction initiatives, or customer-facing environments is preferred.
• PE certification or an advanced technical degree is a plus.

Skills & Mindset

You will be successful in this role if you can balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution. We’re looking for someone who communicates clearly, builds relationships across functions, makes sound decisions with incomplete information, and creates accountability without losing collaboration. You should be comfortable working in a fast-paced manufacturing environment where priorities compete, resources need to be balanced, and strong project leadership directly impacts business performance.