Manager - Project Management III

Application close date:

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We’re working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!  

This role owns program execution for a family of advanced custom precision machines built entirely in-house at Blue Origin. These are not purchased tools with a service contract behind them — we architect them, build them, instrument them, and sustain them ourselves. Each machine is a large-envelope, multi-axis precision platform integrating motion, thermal, fluid, electrical, and control subsystems, assembled from thousands of parts including long-lead custom fabrications.

You will run three programs that overlap continuously: building new machines, keeping a fielded fleet at rate, and executing retrofits on hardware already in production. Each has its own schedule, its own critical path, and its own set of people who have to be in the right place in the right week. Holding all three together — and knowing which one is actually about to slip — is the job.

The hardware these machines produce goes directly into flight, so a machine that is late or down has consequences that land well outside this team. You will be the person who sees a slip coming far enough ahead to do something about it, and who tells leadership the truth about it early. That means building schedules engineers actually believe, tracking the handful of items that genuinely drive the end date, and running the cross-functional execution that keeps design, build, supply chain, manufacturing, and quality pointed at the same date.

You will join a small, senior, hands-on team that owns its hardware end to end. The machines are in production today and the next-generation configuration is in active design, which means you will work both problems at once. This is a floor-facing program role, not a reporting function — the schedule is only useful if it is built from what is actually happening at the machine.

Passion for our mission and vision is required.

Special Mentions

·      Relocation provided

·      Occasional extended hours or weekend coverage may be required to support machine builds, commissioning milestones, and unplanned downtime

·      On-site role — this work requires physical presence with the hardware and the team

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Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

·      Own the integrated program schedule for machine builds, fleet sustainment, and retrofit campaigns — build it, resource-load it, baseline it, and keep it current against what is actually happening on the floor

·      Identify, track, and actively manage the critical path; distinguish the handful of items genuinely driving the end date from the much larger set of items that are merely late

·      Drive cross-functional execution across design engineering, controls, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, and facilities — holding owners to commitments without owning their functions

·      Run the program's recurring operating rhythm: status reviews, milestone reviews, and cross-functional coordination meetings that produce decisions rather than status recitation

·      Own the program risk register — identify risks early, drive mitigation plans to named owners and dates, and escalate with a recommendation rather than a problem statement

·      Manage long-lead item planning and schedule integration with supply chain and production control, so that procurement timing is a schedule input rather than a surprise

·      Plan and sequence retrofit and upgrade campaigns across a fielded fleet, coordinating machine downtime windows against ongoing production demand to minimize disruption

·      Track machine build and commissioning progress against milestone gates, and manage the handoffs between build completion, commissioning, qualification, and production release

·      Develop and report program metrics — schedule performance, milestone attainment, open-issue burndown, and downtime — and use them to drive action rather than to describe history

·      Prepare and deliver clear, honest status reporting to engineering and program leadership, including bad news early and with a recovery plan attached

·      Manage scope and change: assess schedule and resource impact when a design change, requirement change, or priority shift lands on work already in progress, and drive the resulting replan

·      Coordinate requirements definition and verification planning with engineering, and track closure of requirements and open action items through to completion

·      Interface with internal customers whose hardware depends on machine availability, managing expectations and commitments against real capacity

·      Maintain program documentation and records — schedules, action items, decisions, risks, and configuration status — so that program state is a matter of record rather than recollection

·      Drive resolution of blocking issues across organizational boundaries, including the ones with no obvious owner

·      Identify and implement improvements to program planning, reporting, and execution processes that measurably reduce late surprises

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Minimum Qualifications

·      Bachelor degree in Engineering, Operations, Business, Supply Chain, or a related technical or program discipline, or equivalent experience

·      5+ years of program or project management experience delivering complex hardware — capital equipment, industrial machinery, automation systems, or aerospace hardware

·      Demonstrated ownership of an integrated schedule for a multi-discipline hardware program, including building it from scratch and maintaining it through execution

·      Demonstrated ability to identify and manage critical path, and to drive schedule recovery when a program is behind

·      Experience leading cross-functional teams through influence rather than direct authority

·      Demonstrated risk management experience — identification, mitigation planning, and escalation

·      Proficiency with scheduling tools (Microsoft Project, Primavera, or equivalent).

·      Demonstrated ability to communicate clearly and candidly with both engineers and senior leadership, including delivering unwelcome news early

·      Sufficient technical fluency to hold a substantive conversation with mechanical, controls, and manufacturing engineers and to assess whether a plan is credible

·      Ability to earn trust, maintain positive and professional relationships, and contribute to a culture of inclusion

·      Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum

Preferred Qualifications

·      Experience managing programs that build production machines or capital equipment, rather than only flight or product hardware

·      Experience managing a first-of-its-kind development program through to repeatable production

·      Experience planning and executing retrofit or upgrade campaigns on an operating equipment fleet, including downtime coordination against production demand

·      Experience managing machine build, commissioning, and qualification lifecycles and the handoffs between them

·      Experience with long-lead procurement planning and its integration into a program schedule

·      Working familiarity with ERP/MRP and PLM systems as program data sources

·      PMP, PMI-SP, or equivalent certification

·      Lean, Agile, 5S, or continuous improvement training and demonstrated application

·      Experience in aerospace, semiconductor, medical device, or another regulated or high-precision manufacturing environment

·      Experience managing resource-constrained programs where the same small team supports production and development simultaneously

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Physical Requirements

·      Ability to work on an active manufacturing floor adjacent to large industrial equipment

·      Ability to stand and walk for extended periods during floor walks, build reviews, and commissioning activity

·      Ability to wear required personal protective equipment

·      Comfortable working in an industrial manufacturing environment

Base Pay Range for:

Don’t meet all desired requirements? Studies have shown that some people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single desired qualification. At Blue Origin, we are dedicated to building an authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every desired qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Applicants for employment at Blue Origin must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e. current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum.

• Required for all positions: Blue’s Standard Background Check
• Required for Certain Job Profiles:  Defense Biometric Identification System (DBIDS) background check if at any time the role requires one to be on a military installation
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