Project Engineering Manager, Engineering Operations & Strategy

Project Engineering Manager, Engineering Operations & Strategy Location: Auburn Hills, MI or Saginaw, MI Position Overview The Engineering Operations & Strategy Position is a leadership role responsible for bridging enterprise business strategy with engineering execution. This role provides the operating backbone for the engineering organization by evaluating and evolving organizational structure, development methodologies, metrics, and tooling to enable scale, predictability, and value delivery. Operating as a strategic partner to engineering, product, and executive leadership, this role drives Lean Agile transformation grounded in data, systems thinking, and continuous improvement. The Manager is accountable for fostering a culture that prioritizes flow efficiency, reduces waste, improves delivery reliability, and aligns engineering outcomes with customer and business value. Key Responsibilities Methodology & Process Transformation Audit & Evolution: Conduct comprehensive assessments of existing engineering workflows, delivery practices, and organizational interfaces to identify bottlenecks, dependencies, waste, and structural inefficiencies. Framework Deployment: Lead the transition to, or optimization of, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and complementary Lean practices, tailoring implementation to organizational maturity, product complexity, and business objectives. Lean Value Delivery: Champion value stream oriented thinking, including Continuous Delivery Pipeline optimization and Value Stream Mapping, to ensure engineering investment aligns directly with customer and business outcomes. KPI & Flow Metrics: Define, implement, and govern core engineering metrics such as Cycle Time, Lead Time, Deployment Frequency, Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR), flow efficiency, and predictability (“say do” ratio). Executive Transparency: Establish automated, real time dashboards that provide clear visibility into engineering health, throughput, quality, and delivery confidence for executive and engineering leadership. Systemic Improvement: Use data to identify organizational and systemic constraints rather than individual performance issues, driving improvements through fact based insights and continuous learning. Engineering Tool Ecosystem: Own the strategy and governance for the engineering toolchain (e.g., Jira / Azure DevOps, Confluence, GitHub), ensuring tools reinforce Lean Agile ways of working rather than becoming sources of friction. Standardization & Consistency: Define and deploy a unified framework for work tracking, documentation, planning, and reporting to enable coordination, comparability, and alignment across a global engineering organization. Organizational Design & Coaching Team Topology & Design: Advise engineering leadership on organizational structures and team topologies that minimize dependencies, maximize autonomy, and support scalable execution. Change Leadership: Act as a coach and advisor to Engineering Managers, Product Leaders, and Scrum Masters, guiding them through cultural and behavioral shifts required for Lean Agile adoption. Leadership Enablement: Build leadership capability across engineering by reinforcing systems thinking, outcome oriented planning, and data driven decision making. Required Qualifications Experience: 7+ years of experience in Engineering Management, Engineering Operations, Program Management, or Agile Coaching within a complex, scaling software or embedded systems environment. Lean Agile Expertise: Deep hands on experience with SAFe, Kanban, and Scrum at scale; SAFe certification (SPC, SA, or equivalent) strongly preferred. Metrics Orientation: Demonstrated experience implementing engineering effectiveness metrics (e.g., DORA or equivalent), with the ability to translate metrics into actionable organizational improvements. Systems Thinking: Proven ability to view the organization holistically, understanding how changes to structure, process, tooling, or incentives impact overall system performance. Influence & Communication: Exceptional ability to influence without direct authority and communicate complex technical and organizational concepts to senior, non technical stakeholders. Change Management: Track record of leading organizational change initiatives in environments with competing priorities and high expectations for delivery. Education Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Business, or a related field required . Master’s degree (MBA, Engineering Management, or equivalent) preferred . Strategic & Systems Thinking Organizational Design & Change Leadership Influence Without Authority Execution Discipline & Results Orientation #J-18808-Ljbffr Nexteer Automotive