Project Engineering Manager, Engineering Operations & Strategy

Position: Project/Engineering Manager, Engineering Operations & Strategy

Location: Auburn Hills, MI or Saginaw, MI

Position: Project Engineering Manager, Engineering Operations & Strategy  

At Nexteer, our strength lies in the diversity of our team—each member contributing unique backgrounds, experiences, and aspirations. We believe this diversity fuels our innovation, broadens our perspectives, and propels our collective growth.

For over a century, we’ve been innovators in the automotive industry.  Our vision is clear - we are a global leading motion control technology company accelerating mobility to be safe, green and exciting. Our unwavering commitment to Quality, Collaboration, Integrity, and Accountability guides us as we solve motion control challenges for our global customers. If you’re ready to join a dynamic team that drives change and makes a difference, Nexteer welcomes you! 

About the Role:

The Engineering Operations & Strategy Position is a leadership role responsible for bridging enterprise business strategy with engineering execution. This role provides the operating backbone for the engineering organization by evaluating and evolving organizational structure, development methodologies, metrics, and tooling to enable scale, predictability, and value delivery.

Operating as a strategic partner to engineering, product, and executive leadership, this role drives Lean Agile transformation grounded in data, systems thinking, and continuous improvement. The Manager is accountable for fostering a culture that prioritizes flow efficiency, reduces waste, improves delivery reliability, and aligns engineering outcomes with customer and business value.

Key Responsibilities

As the Project Engineering Manager, Engineering Operations & Strategy, you will be responsible to:

Methodology & Process Transformation

• Audit & Evolution: Conduct comprehensive assessments of existing engineering workflows, delivery practices, and organizational interfaces to identify bottlenecks, dependencies, waste, and structural inefficiencies.
• Framework Deployment: Lead the transition to, or optimization of, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and complementary Lean practices, tailoring implementation to organizational maturity, product complexity, and business objectives.
• Lean Value Delivery: Champion value stream oriented thinking, including Continuous Delivery Pipeline optimization and Value Stream Mapping, to ensure engineering investment aligns directly with customer and business outcomes.

Metrics & Data Driven Leadership

• KPI & Flow Metrics: Define, implement, and govern core engineering metrics such as Cycle Time, Lead Time, Deployment Frequency, Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR), flow efficiency, and predictability (“say do” ratio).
• Executive Transparency: Establish automated, real time dashboards that provide clear visibility into engineering health, throughput, quality, and delivery confidence for executive and engineering leadership.
• Systemic Improvement: Use data to identify organizational and systemic constraints rather than individual performance issues, driving improvements through fact based insights and continuous learning.

Tooling & Infrastructure Strategy

• Engineering Tool Ecosystem: Own the strategy and governance for the engineering toolchain (e.g., Jira / Azure DevOps, Confluence, GitHub), ensuring tools reinforce Lean Agile ways of working rather than becoming sources of friction.
• Standardization & Consistency: Define and deploy a unified framework for work tracking, documentation, planning, and reporting to enable coordination, comparability, and alignment across a global engineering organization.

Organizational Design & Coaching

• Team Topology & Design: Advise engineering leadership on organizational structures and team topologies that minimize dependencies, maximize autonomy, and support scalable execution.
• Change Leadership: Act as a coach and advisor to Engineering Managers, Product Leaders, and Scrum Masters, guiding them through cultural and behavioral shifts required for Lean Agile adoption.
• Leadership Enablement: Build leadership capability across engineering by reinforcing systems thinking, outcome oriented planning, and data driven decision making.

Qualifications

• Experience: 7+ years of experience in Engineering Management, Engineering Operations, Program Management, or Agile Coaching within a complex, scaling software or embedded systems environment.
• Lean Agile Expertise: Deep hands on experience with SAFe, Kanban, and Scrum at scale; SAFe certification (SPC, SA, or equivalent) strongly preferred.
• Metrics Orientation: Demonstrated experience implementing engineering effectiveness metrics (e.g., DORA or equivalent), with the ability to translate metrics into actionable organizational improvements.
• Systems Thinking: Proven ability to view the organization holistically, understanding how changes to structure, process, tooling, or incentives impact overall system performance.
• Influence & Communication: Exceptional ability to influence without direct authority and communicate complex technical and organizational concepts to senior, non technical stakeholders.
• Change Management: Track record of leading organizational change initiatives in environments with competing priorities and high expectations for delivery.

Key Competencies

• Strategic & Systems Thinking
• Lean‑Agile Leadership
• Data‑Driven Decision Making
• Organizational Design & Change Leadership
• Influence Without Authority
• Execution Discipline & Results Orientation

Education Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Business, or a related field required. Master’s degree (MBA, Engineering Management, or equivalent) preferred. 

Nexteer is an Equal Opportunity Employer Disabled/Minorities/Veterans/Women

Nexteer is an E-Verify employer. E-Verify is an internet-based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA) that allows participating employees to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees in the United States.

Accessibility for Applicants with Disabilities: If you need a reasonable accommodation for the online application process due to a disability, please email careers@nexteer.com. Please provide your contact information and details about the posted position of interest. Only inquiries regarding assistance for those who need an accommodation with the online application process due to a disability will be returned.

About Nexteer

Nexteer Automotive is a global leader in advanced steering and motion control systems, enabling intuitive, safe, and comfortable mobility for drivers around the world. Our innovative product portfolio includes Electric Power Steering (EPS), Steer-by-Wire™, Driveline, and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) technologies that support electrification, software-defined vehicles, and autonomous driving.

With approximately 13,000 employees and operations in more than 20 manufacturing plants and multiple technical centers globally, Nexteer partners with nearly every major global and regional automotive manufacturer.

Employment Agencies 

Employment agencies are an important component of our talent acquisition strategy, and we value the partnerships we have built with our preferred vendors. We will not accept unsolicited resumes from employment agencies for any employment opportunity. All resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at Nexteer Automotive or directly to hiring managers in any form without a signed Nexteer Automotive Agency Agreement on file, and search engagement for that position, will be deemed unsolicited in nature, and no fee will be paid in the event the candidate is hired as a result of the referral or through other means. Additionally, any resume submitted without a contract in place will be considered Nexteer Automotive property and no fees will be paid to the agency if the candidate is hired. 

Please note, agency agreements will only be valid if in writing and signed by a member of Nexteer’s Human Resources team.  No other Nexteer employee is authorized to bind Nexteer to any agreement regarding the placement of candidates by an agency.