Ship Design Manager

Position Summary:

A well-established U.S. shipbuilder serving commercial and government customers is seeking an experienced Ship Design Manager to lead and coordinate vessel design and engineering activities at its Orange, Texas facility.

This position provides technical and organizational leadership throughout the ship design process, ensuring engineering and production design deliverables are accurate, complete, constructible, and issued in accordance with project schedules.

Working closely with Engineering, Production, Program Management, Planning, Material Control, Quality, customers, regulatory agencies, classification societies, and outside engineering partners, the Ship Design Manager will ensure vessel designs are successfully translated from functional requirements into production-ready information that supports safe, efficient, and cost-effective construction.

The ideal candidate combines strong shipbuilding and marine design experience with proven leadership skills and the ability to manage multiple technical disciplines, priorities, and project requirements in a fast-paced shipyard environment.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Lead and coordinate vessel design and engineering activities supporting new construction projects.
• Manage the development, review, coordination, and issuance of engineering and production design deliverables in accordance with established project schedules.
• Provide leadership and technical direction to designers, engineers, and other technical personnel supporting vessel design and construction.
• Coordinate structural, mechanical, piping, electrical, outfitting, and other design disciplines to ensure a fully integrated vessel design.
• Work closely with Production to ensure engineering drawings and design information are practical, constructible, and aligned with shipyard fabrication and assembly methods.
• Coordinate with Program Management and Planning/Scheduling personnel to establish engineering priorities, required design dates, and deliverable schedules supporting overall vessel construction milestones.
• Monitor design progress against project schedules, identify potential delays or technical risks, and develop recovery or mitigation plans as required.
• Manage technical and design issue resolution throughout construction, including drawing revisions, field changes, requests for information, and production-related engineering support.
• Review drawings, specifications, calculations, technical documentation, and design packages for accuracy, completeness, consistency, and compliance with project requirements.
• Coordinate engineering activities with customers, regulatory authorities, classification societies, vendors, subcontractors, and outside engineering firms.
• Ensure designs comply with applicable contractual requirements, regulatory standards, classification requirements, customer specifications, and organizational standards.
• Lead and participate in design reviews and technical meetings with internal teams, customers, vendors, regulatory agencies, and other project stakeholders.
• Evaluate and implement design changes while considering cost, schedule, material availability, production impact, constructability, and vessel performance.
• Coordinate with Material Control, Purchasing, and Production to ensure equipment and vendor information is incorporated into the design in time to support procurement and construction requirements.
• Support Estimating, Sales, and Product Development with technical information, design concepts, feasibility reviews, and engineering input for prospective projects as needed.
• Promote design standardization, reuse, lessons learned, and continuous improvement across engineering and production design activities.
• Support the development and implementation of engineering processes, procedures, design standards, and quality-control practices.
• Maintain effective communication between Engineering and shipyard operations to ensure technical issues are identified and resolved quickly.
• Participate in vessel inspections, construction reviews, testing, commissioning, and other project activities as required.

Leadership Responsibilities:

• Provide day-to-day leadership, technical guidance, workload planning, and prioritization for assigned engineering and design personnel.
• Establish expectations for design quality, schedule performance, communication, and accountability.
• Monitor staffing requirements and coordinate engineering resources based on project workload and construction priorities.
• Mentor and develop engineering and design personnel while promoting technical knowledge sharing and professional growth.
• Facilitate collaboration across engineering disciplines and between Engineering, Production, Planning, Program Management, and other functional groups.
• Support recruiting, onboarding, training, performance management, and development of engineering and design personnel as assigned.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Structural Engineering, or a related engineering discipline preferred.
• Significant experience in ship design, marine engineering, naval architecture, or production design within a shipbuilding or marine construction environment.
• Previous experience leading engineering/design teams or managing multidisciplinary vessel design activities strongly preferred.
• Experience supporting vessel construction from design development through production, testing, and delivery.
• Experience with commercial and/or government vessel programs preferred.
• Equivalent combinations of relevant education and extensive shipbuilding design experience may be considered.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Strong knowledge of ship design, marine construction, production engineering, and shipbuilding processes.
• Strong understanding of functional design, production design, fabrication, assembly, outfitting, and vessel construction.
• Ability to read, interpret, review, and evaluate complex engineering drawings, specifications, calculations, and technical documentation.
• Working knowledge of applicable marine regulatory requirements and classification society rules.
• Experience working with the U.S. Coast Guard and classification societies such as ABS is highly desirable.
• Familiarity with commercial and/or government shipbuilding requirements and documentation.
• Strong project management and organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple projects, priorities, technical disciplines, and deadlines simultaneously.
• Ability to identify technical and schedule risks and drive issues to timely resolution.
• Strong leadership, communication, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with engineering personnel, production teams, senior management, customers, vendors, regulatory representatives, and external engineering organizations.
• Understanding of configuration control, drawing revision processes, engineering change management, and document control.
• Ability to balance engineering requirements with constructability, schedule, cost, quality, and operational considerations.

Technical Skills:

Experience with or working knowledge of marine design and engineering software such as:

• ShipConstructor
• AutoCAD
• Rhino
• Orca3D
• GHS
• PIPE-FLO
• Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software
• Microsoft Office applications

Experience with additional 3D modeling, product lifecycle management, document control, scheduling, or shipbuilding production systems is beneficial.

Work Environment

This is an on-site position in Orange, Texas and requires regular interaction with both office-based engineering personnel and shipyard production operations.

The Ship Design Manager must be comfortable working in an active industrial shipbuilding environment and may be required to board vessels under construction, access fabrication and production areas, climb stairs or ladders, and work around industrial equipment.

Occasional travel to other company facilities, customer locations, vendor facilities, regulatory meetings, or project sites may be required.