Senior Technical Operations Leader

Swagelok; Solon (OH); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Total Rewards benefits

Job summary

Swagelok, Northeast Ohio, is seeking a Senior Technical Leader to guide a functional team across laboratories, manufacturing, and product design. You will align resources with priorities and drive performance, quality, and safety.

You will mentor engineers, manage multi-project portfolios, and advance standard work, data-driven decisions, and continuous improvement. This role requires strong communication and the ability to translate complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, engineering technology, manufacturing technology, applied science, or related field; or equivalent combination of education and relevant technical experience.
• Demonstrated people leadership experience, including selecting talent, setting expectations, coaching, developing capability, building teams, and managing performance.
• Experience leading or supporting technical work in two or more environments such as laboratories, manufacturing, product or process design, product development, testing, project execution, or technical services.
• Demonstrated ability to allocate technical resources, balance competing priorities, and deliver multiple projects or workstreams safely, on time, and within budget.
• Working knowledge of structured product and process development, technical problem-solving, testing or validation, change control, and project-management practices.
• Ability to understand and apply engineering and technical principles across products, processes, equipment, and systems, and to engage subject-matter experts when deeper specialization is required.
• Experience developing standard work, improving technical processes, and using data to identify risk, prioritize action, and improve performance.
• Familiarity with technical tools and systems relevant to the supported departments, which may include test and measurement equipment, data acquisition, automation, design tools, manufacturing systems, or project-management applications.
• Advanced problem-solving, judgment, and decision-making skills, including the ability to assess technical and operational risk.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate technical information for varied audiences and influence across functional boundaries.
• Proficiency with standard business software and the ability to learn function-specific technical systems.
• Successful completion of relevant internal training requirements.

Responsibilities

• People Leadership – Establishes clear expectations, develops challenging goals, coaches for improved performance, evaluates development progress, recommends compensation actions, and addresses performance or workplace issues appropriately.
• Team Effectiveness – Creates an inclusive, accountable environment that promotes teamwork, knowledge sharing, engagement, flexibility, and efficient execution across technical disciplines.
• Cross-Functional Resource Leadership – Plans and adjusts staffing to support laboratories, manufacturing, design, product, and project work. Deploys technicians based on capability, risk, workload, and changing business priorities; develops bench strength through hiring, cross-training, transfers, and individual development.
• Technical Direction – Provides leadership for technical activities that may include concept development, design support, prototyping, test development and execution, validation, production support, troubleshooting, equipment implementation, and project delivery.
• Prioritization and Execution – Partners with functional and project leaders to define scope, clarify deliverables, assign resources, resolve competing priorities, monitor progress, and ensure commitments for safety, quality, cost, and timing are achieved.
• Standardization and Continuous Improvement – Develops, implements, and sustains standard work, technical methods, documentation, and controls. Uses data, lean practices, automation, and lessons learned to improve capability, repeatability, throughput, and decision quality.
• Technical Governance and Risk – Promotes sound technical judgment and appropriate use of product and process development, design, testing, quality, change-control, and project-management practices. Escalates technical, resource, safety, quality, and delivery risks as appropriate.
• Stakeholder Partnership – Builds effective working relationships across departments and levels of leadership. Communicates technical information, resource needs, tradeoffs, risks, and recommendations in a clear and timely manner.
• Budget and Asset Management – Supports departmental budget planning, analyzes variances, identifies cost opportunities, and develops business justification for tools, systems, software, equipment, maintenance, and capital investments.
• Project and Change Leadership – May lead complex technical or operational improvement projects involving new products, processes, testing capabilities, equipment, systems, software, or facility needs.
• As a leader, knows, applies, and appropriately escalates Swagelok associate policies and reinforces applicable regulatory, quality, and safety requirements.

Skills

People leadership

Cross-environment experience

Technical leadership

Resource allocation

Structured problem-solving

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in engineering

Tools

Test equipment

Data acquisition

Automation tools

Job description

Swagelok, Northeast Ohio, is seeking a Senior Technical Leader to guide a functional team across laboratories, manufacturing, and product design. You will align resources with priorities and drive performance, quality, and safety.

You will mentor engineers, manage multi-project portfolios, and advance standard work, data-driven decisions, and continuous improvement. This role requires strong communication and the ability to translate complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.