Senior Project Engineer

WORK LOCATION: Ann Arbor, MI

FLSA STATUS: Exempt

SALARY RANGE: The anticipated salary range for this role is $117,000 to $154,000 annually. This range reflects a good faith estimate based on the targeted level for the role and typical compensation benchmarks across U.S. locations. Actual compensation may vary depending on the selected candidate’s qualifications, experience, geographical location, and internal alignment. 

SUMMARY

The Senior Project Engineer leads major segments of engineering execution, ensuring cross-functional technical alignment, milestone readiness, and structured progress toward key deliverables. This role manages multi-disciplinary workstreams across hardware, software, systems, test, and production teams - driving integration, clarifying requirements, and maintaining structured coordination throughout the development lifecycle. 

The Senior Project Engineer prepares and owns the technical readiness for engineering reviews (CoDR, PDR, CDR, TRR), partnering closely with technical leads to ensure teams meet entry/exit criteria. This role improves execution quality by identifying disconnects early, structuring communication, and coordinating the planning, sequencing, and integration of complex engineering activities. The L3 serves as a central communication and alignment hub for engineering leadership. 

RESPONSIBILITIES

The following job functions are a basic requirement but are not limited to and may be assigned other duties: 

• Lead cross-functional coordination for major engineering workstreams or subsystems. 

• Own milestone readiness: track criteria, organize artifacts, and ensure engineering teams deliver inputs on time. 

• Drive technical integration across disciplines (EE, ME, SW, Systems, Test), surfacing risks or gaps early. 

• Build and maintain schedules and integration plans for complex engineering segments. 

• Run recurring coordination meetings, ensuring structured communication, clear next steps, and documented progress. 

• Collaborate with systems engineering to maintain requirement alignment, verification progress, and design impact awareness. 

• Coordinate prototype builds, integration events, and test readiness activities. 

• Support ECO workflows, change documentation, and cross-team configuration control alignment. 

• Provide mentorship and guidance to Associate and L2 Project Engineers. 

• Serve as an execution partner to engineering leadership, offering early insight into progress, constraints, and cross-team needs. 

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Project Management, Technical Management, or related analytical field required. 

• 4–7 years of experience in project engineering, technical program coordination, or engineering operations. 

• Demonstrated experience running multi-disciplinary engineering activities or subsystem-level coordination. 

• Aerospace, defense, robotics, or complex hardware/software integration experience highly preferred. 

• Strong understanding of engineering lifecycles and milestone processes (CoDR, PDR, CDR, TRR). 

• Ability to read, interpret, and summarize technical documentation across multiple engineering disciplines. 

• Proficiency with project coordination tools (Jira, Confluence, Smartsheet, or similar). 

• Strong ability to build schedules, track dependencies, and manage integration plans. 

• Experience coordinating prototype builds, integration activities, or test preparation events.