Engineering Delivery Manager

Location: Arlington, United States of America

Thales people architect solutions that are relied upon to deliver operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defensive systems for land, sea, and air. From early warning, to threat neutralisation, our platforms cover all levels from very short-range systems, to extended protection across the entire battle-space including Airspace Mobility Solutions, Vehicles and Tactical Systems and Missile Defence, Optronics, and Radar.

Knowing what Thales does today, means asking where technology is taking us tomorrow. We are creating the waves of digital transformation that will cary our customers into the future. Where these transformations intersect and interfere is where the most interesting and innovative tomorrows are being built. Thales operates at the intersection of these technologies to find every tomorrow.

Engineering Delivery Manager

Arlington, VA (Hybrid)

Position Summary

The Engineering Delivery Manager (EDM / EDM Bid) serves as the single-point engineering authority for highly complex, software-centric bids and delivery programs. As the accountable owner of the end-to-end engineering solution, the EDM defines, governs, and continuously optimizes the engineering strategy, system lifecycle, operating model, and enabling processes and tools to ensure the successful realization of technically robust, certifiable, and commercially competitive solutions.

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Serve as the senior engineering authority at all Bid and Program Gate reviews (BL/GBU), representing engineering interests and accountability by ensuring full technical validation prior to Cost Commitment Reviews and formal Gate approvals. Actively engage in bid governance forums and client-facing meetings to articulate and defend the engineering solution, delivery strategy, and integrated schedule.

• Define, govern, and deliver the Engineering Solution Strategy, including the end-to-end system development lifecycle and the tailoring of project-specific engineering processes, practices, methods, and toolchains derived from domain and corporate reference frameworks.

• Author, maintain, and govern the Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP) and associated engineering management documentation; structure and lead co-engineering activities; approve, cascade, and enforce lower-level engineering plans, subcontractor engineering requirements, and technical statements of work.

• Provide end-to-end leadership across the full engineering lifecycle, including requirements and specifications management, software and systems engineering, qualification, integration, verification, validation, certification, and operational deployment, ensuring technical coherence, compliance, and delivery readiness at each phase.

• Define, implement, and control reusable engineering instantiation and cost models, leveraging prior capitalizations, benchmarks, and historical performance data to rigorously challenge estimates, drive estimate accuracy, and support bid competitiveness.

• Champion and enforce Design-to-Cost and Design-for-Performance principles, ensuring engineering solutions, architectures, and delivery approaches are intentionally optimized to balance technical performance, schedule, risk, and cost competitiveness.

• Apply and govern advanced planning, scheduling, and control disciplines, including WBS/OBS structuring, milestone and dependency management, workload and capacity planning, cost modeling, and Earned Value Management (EVM), to maintain execution rigor and predictability.

• Define, monitor, and actively use engineering KPIs and dashboards to assess delivery performance, productivity, quality, and competitiveness, and to drive corrective actions and continuous improvement across bids and projects.

Minimum Qualifications

• ·Bachelor’s degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline, with a minimum of 9 years of relevant professional experience, or 10+ years of experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Extensive, demonstrated track record of successfully leading the delivery of large-scale, highly complex, software-intensive systems within industries relevant to Thales, such as aerospace, defense, air traffic management / air navigation, telecommunications, or similarly regulated, mission-critical environments.

• Proven leadership experience managing and governing large, multidisciplinary engineering organizations, including direct hierarchical accountability for engineering managers, technical leads, and senior subject