Engineering Manager

Engineering Manager

The Engineering Manager leads the engineers who design the water treatment plants Seven Seas Water builds, owns, and operates — primarily seawater and brackish water reverse osmosis (SWRO/BWRO) systems serving municipal and industrial customers in U.S. and international markets. Direct reports include Project Engineers, Process Engineers, and EI&C Engineers.

The role exists to deliver: engineering that arrives on schedule, complete, and right, so that water treatment plants reach the fleet on time. Drawings, Bills of Quantities, control systems, and procurement packages are planned and executed to serve the project schedule — procurement and construction should never be waiting on engineering. The Engineering Manager achieves this through people and capacity: developing engineers into stronger engineers, putting the right people in the right seats, and managing a project-driven workload that is inherently lumpy — flexing department capacity through a deliberate mix of in-house staff, lump-sum engineering subcontracts, and hourly contract engineers. She or he is the quality gate for engineering work leaving the department and the guardian of Seven Seas Water engineering standards.

Requirements

Primary Responsibilities

1. Project Delivery

• Own the engineering schedule commitment on every project: engineering deliverables — drawings, Bills of Quantities, control system deliverables, specifications, and procurement packages — are planned, sequenced, and completed to support on-time delivery of plants to the fleet.

• Plan engineering backward from the project schedule: sequence deliverables so long-lead procurement packages release early, construction packages arrive before the field needs them, and engineering is never the critical-path surprise.

• Run the department on early warning: track deliverable status against plan, surface emerging risks while there is still time to recover, and come to the table with options — resequence, add resources, or outsource.

• Support Project Managers in planning and delivering engineering scope; when multiple groups must engage to meet a deadline, ensure all parties understand the requirements and are aligned on the plan.

• Ensure cross-disciplinary checks and communication among process, mechanical, and EI&C engineering, and coordinate with the 3D Plant Design group (a peer function — designers do not report to this role) so engineering and design stay integrated and deliverables land together.

• Facilitate HAZOPs and plant design reviews for new plants, scheduled to serve the project — early enough to influence design, never late enough to hold up procurement or construction.

• Support Business Development with engineering effort estimates and technical input on proposals, and provide realistic capacity commitments for pursuit schedules.

2. Talent Development and Mentoring

• Actively mentor and develop each engineer on the team: set individual development plans, review work with a teaching mindset, and grow the technical bench strength of the department.

• Assess each engineer's strengths, gaps, and trajectory honestly, and match people to projects accordingly — the right person in the right seat for the project's complexity, phase, and customer environment.

• Build a trusting environment where problems surface early without fear of blame, with an emphasis on problem solving; facilitate discussion, decision making, and conflict resolution.

• Lead as a working manager — technically credible, willing to jump in when the team needs it, and leading by example.

3. Resource and Demand Management

• Own the department's capacity plan. Forecast engineering demand across active projects, proposals, and pursuits; maintain a rolling view of load vs. capacity by discipline (project, process, EI&C) and act ahead of the crunch, not in it.

• Manage inherently lumpy work demands without carrying dead headcount: develop and execute a flexible capacity strategy that blends core in-house staff with outside resources.

• Structure outsourcing intelligently: lump-sum engineering subcontracts for well-defined, severable scopes (civil, structural, buildings, permitting, discrete design packages) and hourly/T&M contract engineers for staff augmentation during peaks. Know when each model applies and manage the commercial and technical risk of both.

• Build and maintain a qualified bench of engineering subcontractors and individual contractors before they are needed — pre-vetted, familiar with SSW standards, and ready to mobilize.

• Own in-source vs. outsource decisions for engineering scope, balancing cost, schedule, quality, and the development value of keeping work in-house.

• Manage assignment of engineers to projects in coordination with Project Managers; be the single point of accountability for who is working on what and why.

4. Quality Assurance and Engineering Standards

• Serve as the quality gate: all engineering work leaving the department — in-house or subcontracted — is checked, compliant with Seven Seas Water engineering standards, and of the quality required for plants SSW will operate for decades.

• Enforce a P&ID-centered engineering culture: the P&ID as the integrating document across process, mechanical, and EI&C disciplines, with disciplined scope boundaries, tie points, and revision control.

• Hold subcontracted engineering to the same standard as in-house work; review and approve contractor deliverables and hold vendors accountable for corrective action when work is deficient.

• Ensure disciplined drawing and document control: single source of truth, managed revisions, and use of the document list and approval status as a real measure of progress.

• Communicate transparently up and down the organization on schedules, workload, performance, nonconformances, and department KPIs.

• Champion continual improvement of the department's standards, templates, tools, and processes.

What Success Looks Like

• We're delivering projects on schedule and without surprises: Drawings, Bills of Quantities, Control Systems, and Procurement Packages planned & executed to facilitate on-time delivery of water treatment plants to the fleet.

• Engineering is never the reason a plant is late: procurement and construction are fed on time, and when risk emerges, the project team hears about it early with options on the table.

• Engineers are growing: measurable increases in the scope and complexity each engineer can own year over year.

• No surprise capacity crises: demand peaks are absorbed through the contractor bench and planned outsourcing, not through burnout or missed dates.

• The right people are on the right projects, and assignments are deliberate rather than reactive.

• Engineering deliverables — in-house and subcontracted — pass checking the first time and meet SSW standards without exception.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline; Chemical or Mechanical Engineering preferred.

• Eight (8) to twelve (12) years of engineering experience in a project-execution / system-integration environment; water treatment strongly preferred, SWRO/BWRO experience highly preferred.

• A track record of delivering engineering scope on schedule in a project-driven environment — be prepared to talk about projects you have delivered and how you kept engineering off the critical path.

• Five (5) or more years managing engineers, with a demonstrable record of developing people — be prepared to talk about engineers you have grown.

• Direct experience managing engineering subcontracts and contract labor: scoping and negotiating lump-sum engineering packages, managing hourly/T&M contractors, and holding outside firms to a quality standard.

• Technically credible reviewer: able to read, check, and approve P&IDs, PFDs, GAs, specifications, and calculations across process, mechanical, and EI&C disciplines — and able to tell good work from bad, whether it came from an employee or a contractor.

• Assertive and decisive: able to enforce standards, make the tough calls on people and priorities, and be a voice of reason and authority.

• Strong communicator, orally and in writing, up and down the organization and with customers and vendors.

• Ability to work a hybrid schedule (multiple days per week in the Tampa office) and travel 10–20% domestically and internationally.

Preferred Qualifications

• PE license highly desired.

• PMP certification a plus.

• Spanish language ability strongly preferred; multilingual skills desired.

• Experience with ERP-driven project execution (IFS Cloud or similar) and modern engineering document management practices.

How to Apply

We recognize that our people are our strength and the diverse talents they bring to our global workforce are directly linked to our success. We are an equal opportunity employer and place a high value on diversity and inclusion at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected attribute, including race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation