Manager - Project Management III

blueorigin; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation provided

On-site role

Job summary

Blue Origin is seeking a hands-on, senior program manager to own the integrated schedule for machining builds, fleet sustenance, and retrofit campaigns. You will coordinate design engineering, controls, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, and facilities to keep on-time delivery and safety in focus.

The role requires balancing three overlapping programs, building schedules teams trust, and delivering clear status with recovery plans. On-site relocation is provided for the right candidate.

Qualifications

• Experience leading complex cross-functional programs in manufacturing/engineering.
• Strong ability to identify and manage critical path and baselines.
• Proven track record coordinating design, build, supply chain, and quality across teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the integrated program schedule for machine builds, fleet sustainment, and retrofit campaigns; baseline and update it.
• Identify, track, and actively manage the critical path; distinguish items driving end date.
• Drive cross-functional execution across design engineering, controls, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, and facilities.
• Run recurring operating rhythm: status reviews, milestone reviews, and cross-functional coordination meetings.
• Own the program risk register; drive mitigation plans with named owners and dates.
• Coordinate long-lead item planning with supply chain and production control to align procurement with schedule.

Skills

Program management

Scheduling

Cross-functional leadership

Risk management

Job description

Application close date:

Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the requisition is closed.

At Blue Origin, we envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. We're working to develop reusable, safe, and low-cost space vehicles and systems within a culture of safety, collaboration, and inclusion. Join our team of problem solvers as we add new chapters to the history of spaceflight!

This role is part of Blue Origin Operations, which is comprised of Integrated Supply Chain, Test Operations, Safety, Quality, and Mission Assurance. This includes Manufacturing and Supply Chain support across all Blue Origin facilities.

This role owns program execution for a family of advanced custom precision machines built entirely in-house at Blue Origin. These are not purchased tools with a service contract behind them — we architect them, build them, instrument them, and sustain them ourselves. Each machine is a large-envelope, multi-axis precision platform integrating motion, thermal, fluid, electrical, and control subsystems, assembled from thousands of parts including long-lead custom fabrications.

You will run three programs that overlap continuously: building new machines, keeping a fielded fleet at rate, and executing retrofits on hardware already in production. Each has its own schedule, its own critical path, and its own set of people who have to be in the right place in the right week. Holding all three together — and knowing which one is actually about to slip — is the job.

The hardware these machines produce goes directly into flight, so a machine that is late or down has consequences that land well outside this team. You will be the person who sees a slip coming far enough ahead to do something about it, and who tells leadership the truth about it early. That means building schedules engineers actually believe, tracking the handful of items that genuinely drive the end date, and running the cross-functional execution that keeps design, build, supply chain, manufacturing, and quality pointed at the same date.

You will join a small, senior, hands‑on team that owns its hardware end to end. The machines are in production today and the next‑generation configuration is in active design, which means you will work both problems at once. This is a floor-facing program role, not a reporting function — the schedule is only useful if it is built from what is actually happening at the machine.

Passion for our mission and vision is required.

Special Mentions

• Relocation provided
• Occasional extended hours or weekend coverage may be required to support machine builds, commissioning milestones, and unplanned downtime
• On‑site role — this work requires physical presence with the hardware and the team

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Own the integrated program schedule for machine builds, fleet sustainment, and retrofit campaigns — build it, resource‑load it, baseline it, and keep it current against what is actually happening on the floor
• Identify, track, and actively manage the critical path; distinguish the handful of items genuinely driving the end date from the much larger set of items that are merely late
• Drive cross-functional execution across design engineering, controls, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, and facilities — holding owners to commitments without owning their functions
• Run the program's recurring operating rhythm: status reviews, milestone reviews, and cross-functional coordination meetings that produce decisions rather than status recitation
• Own the program risk register — identify risks early, drive mitigation plans to named owners and dates, and elevate with a recommendation rather than a problem statement
• Manage long‑lead item planning and schedule integration with supply chain and production control, so that procurement timing is a schedule input rather than a surprise
• Plan and sequence retrofit and upgrade campaigns across a fielded fleet, coordinating machine downtime windows against ongoing production demand to minimize disruption
• Track machine build and commissioning progress against milestone gates, and manage the handoffs between build completion, commissioning, qualification, and production release
• Develop and report program metrics — schedule performance, milestone attainment, open‑issue burndown, and downtime — and use them to drive action rather than to describe history
• Prepare and deliver clear, honest status reporting to engineering and program leadership, including bad news early and with a recovery plan attached
• Manage scope and change: assess schedule and resource impact when a design change, requirement change, or priority shift lands on work already in progress, and drive the resulting replan
• Coordinate requirements definition and verification planning with engineering, and track closure of requirements and open action items through to completion
• Interface with internal customers whose hardware depends on machine availability, managing expectations and commitments against real capacity
• Maintain program documentation and records — schedules, action items, decisions, risks, and configuration status — so that program state is a matter of record rather than recollection
• Drive resolution of blocking issues across organizational boundaries, including the ones with no obvious owner