Launch Equipment Shop (LES) Manufacturing Engineer Functional Lead

We are launching people to the Moon and Mars. If you want to be part of this amazing mission and enjoy working in a great team environment, we would love to have you as part of our team that is making history, today. It takes big ideas and determination to take NASA's vision and make it reality. That's what we do every day. 

COMET provides overall management and implementation of ground systems capabilities, flight hardware processing and launch operations at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. This requisition is for a Functional Leader for the Launch Equipment Shop (LES) within the Ground Systems Support (GSS) organization who support multiple programs for National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA).

These tasks will support the International Space Station, Ground Systems Development and Operations, the Space Launch System, Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Launch Services programs.

The candidate will provide leadership to the manufacturing engineers in the LES on KSC.

Responsibilities 

As a member of the team, you will: 

• Demonstrates master proficiency of required procedures for manufacturing engineering, process instructions, and transactional requirements based on the functional workload.

• Possesses communication and interpersonal skills to effectively influence employee behaviors and performance.

•  Provides day-to-day technical leadership of group responsibilities through clearly direction to a team of technicians to ensure timely execution of planned and scheduled work to meet program critical milestones in a safe manner.

•  Provide overtime requirements to manufacturing engineer(s).

• Facilitates employee learning to increase knowledge; optimize training and certification timeliness.

• Coordinate with Work Management to execute scheduled work based on priority.  

• Interface with flow management, project managers, engineering, shop, area integrators, planners, and schedulers, to provide status updates on daily schedules.

• Participate in daily scheduling meetings providing status and updates during fabrication and execution.

• Provide quick identification, resolution, and communication regarding any challenges to scheduled work.

• Proactively identify opportunities to provide recognition through submittal of quarterly, annual and team awards as well as provide constructive feedback to employees.

• Provide inputs to employee performance and recommendations for disciplinary actions, should it be required.

•  Lead pre-shift meetings and participate in pre-task briefings as required.

•  Review Safe Plan of Action documentation to ensure safe execution of work, including but not limited to ensuring required PPE is provided and utilized.

•  Provide as Subject Matter Expert for technical documentation for responsible area (including but not limited to desk instructions, technical documents, Operating Procedures, etc.)

• Provide as POC for incident response and reporting.

• Maintain safety, quality, and good housekeeping standards in all areas of responsibility.

• Build strong relationships based on trust, integrity, and keeping commitments.

• Collaborates with other internal and external Functional Leaders to maximize the value of integration and continuous improvement across the enterprise.

• Supports managers in the performance of functional analysis and critical thinking to identify areas for improvement, recommends corrective actions, potential training, and IT improvements.

• Assist managers in the translation of directorate goals and objectives into innovative operational and tactical execution techniques.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications  

• High School Diploma plus ten (10) years of appropriate and progressive experience; or any approved equivalent combination of relevant education and experience, certifications, or licensure.

• Must have a valid Driver’s License. 

• A background in leadership, manufacturing, fabrication, and production planning is highly desirable.

• Excellent communication, presentation and customer interface skills required to coordinate and technically plan work activities including inter-organizational support.

• Experience working with union represented employees, understanding and ensuring compliance with Collective Bargaining agreements, is highly desirable.

•  Skilled in leading multiple projects and priorities across the areas of responsibility.

• Technical writing background with ability to author documentation and technical work instructions.

• Ability to lead multiple proje