Senior Design Manager - Design for Manufacturing

Best People + Right Culture. These are the driving forces behind JE Dunn’s success.

By hiring inspired people, giving them interesting and challenging work, enabling them with innovative tools, and letting them share in the company’s rewards, we’ve found a sustainable way to grow in our industry for the last 100+ years.

Our diverse teams around the country strive to enrich lives through inspired people and places everyday, and we need inspired people like you to join us in our pursuit of building perfection.

Role Summary

The Senior Design Manager is responsible for managing and leading a multidisciplinary team of designers, engineers, architects, and drafters in the development and delivery of design solutions that support offsite manufacturing operations and project delivery objectives. This position provides strategic and operational leadership to ensure design deliverables meet quality, schedule, cost, and constructability requirements while aligning with client expectations and approved project budgets.The Senior Design Manager is accountable for the design for manufacturing teams’ performance, financial stewardship, staff development, and continuous improvement, including the implementation of design‑for‑manufacturing principles, standard work, and advanced design technologies.

• Autonomy & Decision Making: Makes decisions within defined limits of authority and consults supervisor on other decisions
• Career Path: Various

Key Role Responsibilities - Core

DESIGN MANAGEMENT FAMILY – CORE

• Interprets proposals and develops internal work plans, collaborating with preconstruction, operations, and other key stakeholders.
• Understands potential client’s business needs and helps create or coordinate conceptual plans, elevations, 3D models, for support of presentations and win strategies.
• Reviews and understands  contact documents for project compliance with Codes and Criteria to meet the technical requirements and design deliverables.
• Supports early phase basic due diligence activities with clients and key stakeholders to ensure requirements are incorporated into design documents.
• Manages external design team partners/consultants, assuring they meet the technical, quality as well as schedule requirements for design deliverables.
• Manages the design review process with the design for manufacturing team to ensure schedules are met and identifies project risks and opportunities throughout the design phase.
• Leverages design experiences and knowledge to work with project teams identifying solutions to project specific challenges while monitoring expectations for design schedules, quality control, and content for design document delivery.
• Capable of developing sketches and plans to assist preconstruction with pricing of conceptual ideas. Coordinates with VDC team to develop and implement project(s) as needed.
• Coordinates the design document packaging strategies with the project team.
• Manages project documentation such as proposal, drawings, specifications, reports, calculations, and shop drawings using both 3D and 2D file management system.
• Reviews design and provides quality control review comments to ensure the program specifications are met. 

• Understands project budget and steers project accordingly ensuring the design stays in line with contractual details.
• Generates cost saving strategies and value-added solutions throughout the design phase.
• Monitors and evaluates design partner’s and consultant’s cost through the design development, both cost of project and cost of the design services measured against percent completion of design.
• Assists with change management by helping evaluate requests for additional services by outside design consultants against program requirements and scope in base contract.
• Provides technical design guidance throughout entire design and construction process.
• Provides design engineering support for the entire life cycle of the project (proposal, site survey, engineering, equipment selection, permitting, training, and construction).

Key Role Responsibilities - Additional Core

SENIOR DESIGN MANAGER

In addition, this position will be responsible for:

• Leads the process to understand potential client’s business needs and helps develop conceptual plans, elevations, and 3D models in support of presentations and win strategies.
• Directs the selection of design partners during the design planning process.
• Work with the estimating and business development team to set design budgets, schedules and fees, and influences on