Senior Project Manager

Senior Project Manager

SSTL - Surrey Satellite Technology

Guildford, United Kingdom

The project manager is accountable for overall mission success from contract award through spacecraft development, launch, commissioning and operational acceptance. The role provides strategic leadership across engineering, operations, commercial and supply chain functions, acting as the primary customer interface and owning programme performance throughout the mission lifecycle.

We are looking for a proven proactive and passionate Project Manager with satellite systems experience who can lead a team to scale up production and deliver at pace some of the world’s most innovative space projects to a diverse customer base including institutional, export and defence.

Key Tasks

Role to include, but not limited to:

• Manage projects or aspects of a project from contract commencement through development and delivery of space and ground segments, launch preparation, in-orbit commissioning and subsequent service delivery and operations
• To be responsible for all aspects of the project, or a major element of a programme, working in accordance with the established procedures & processes developed within SSTL (including schedules, deliverables lists, management plans, management of risks, technical maturity gates, earned value management, etc)
• Day-to-day management of the project core team activities to ensure the entire project is progressing in line with the baseline plan, with the expectation on strong leadership, motivation and being the driving force behind the engineering delivery
• Breaking down work into appropriate work packages and obtaining agreements with engineering team leaders for appropriate resources
• Communication with SSTL customers and internal stakeholders, including Engineering Functional Managers, Heads of Engineering, Project Accounting, Commercial teams and SSTL’s Leadership Team
• Complete management of the major project reviews, identifying clear objectives, inputs, outputs, success criteria and ensuring successful outcomes to secure corresponding customer payment milestones
• Management of the project key risks to ensure that risks are identified and captured with measurable and appropriate mitigation actions in place and driven through the project work package structure
• Monitoring and control of the project finances (ensuring contingency remains commensurate with weighted risk exposure, cost to complete, profit take) to ensure the project is delivered within the agreed budget
• Preparation of cost packs in support of business development activities
• Supporting SSTL bids providing programmatic solutions into the Bid Manager, covering deliverables, schedule, costs, risks and customer interactions

Previous Experience

• Proven experience in project management specifically in setting up, running and successfully delivering satellite projects ideally constellations
• Experience of interfacing with customers
• Good experience of implementing contracts
• Familiarity with work package systems and matrix management structure preferable

Qualifications Knowledge & Skills

• A degree or equivalent in an engineering or technical discipline would be preferable
• Good people management skills, able to motivate in a team-oriented, collaborative environment and lead the team
• Good team working skills, together with the ability to interface with others at all levels
• Excellent Inter-personal and communication skills, able to influence, persuade and negotiate with people at all levels (externally & internally) as well as to assist in reaching compromises when there are conflicting requirements
• High degree of organisation, self-motivation and initiative
• Flexible and adaptable to changing priorities
• Results orientated with a strong drive to deliver
• Pro-active and able to take initiative
• Decision making and creative problem-solving skills
• Clear communication skills
• Proven ability to deliver solutions under pressure and to tight timescales
• Ability to work closely with technical teams to understand and grasp concepts and issues and translate those to schedule and cost impacts with a balanced approach to risk
• Ability to produce and maintain a risk register and to communicate the philosophy on risk
• Ability to understand commercial terms and translate those into impacts on project
• Ability to create a project plan and to translate that into a project schedule within MS Project
• Able to work autonomously and using own initiative
• Understanding of contracts and product assurance plans
• Good knowledge of MS Office Excel, Word and PowerPoint and particularly Microsoft Project
• Able to demonstrate company mindsets and behaviours; Be accountable, Drive & delivery, communicate effectively, Self-manage effectively, Work as one team