Project Engineer

Job Title: Project Engineer
Location: Costa Mesa, CA
Employment Type: Contract (W2)
Duration: 12 months

Job Summary

We are seeking a Project Engineer to independently lead moderate-complexity New Product Introduction (NPI) and sustaining projects from initiation through production release. The role involves project execution, stage-gate coordination, customer support, risk management, and cross-functional collaboration to ensure project objectives are achieved. The ideal candidate will have strong project planning and execution skills, the ability to coordinate multidisciplinary teams, and experience supporting manufacturing readiness and production release.

Responsibilities

• Lead assigned projects and support program management activities as needed.
• Develop and maintain integrated project plans, schedules, milestones, actions, dependencies, and decisions.
• Identify, assess, and communicate project risks, barriers, and recovery requirements.
• Monitor project health, priorities, commitments, and deliverables to ensure successful execution.
• Plan and facilitate stage-gate reviews and readiness assessments appropriate to the project scope.
• Track required deliverables, objective evidence, open items, and approved exceptions.
• Ensure functional subject matter experts retain responsibility for technical content and approvals.
• Maintain traceable, audit-ready project documentation and records.
• Communicate project status, commitments, risks, decisions, and recovery plans to relevant stakeholders.
• Coordinate internal teams, customers, suppliers, and multi-site stakeholders as required.
• Support scope, non-recurring engineering (NRE), budget, and commercial discussions through authorized channels.
• Integrate customer requirements, functional deliverables, manufacturing readiness, and business objectives.
• Coordinate with Technical, Quality, Validation, Regulatory, Supply Chain, Operations, and Commercial teams to address project requirements.
• Evaluate project impacts related to schedule, cost, quality, capacity, and risk.
• Promote safety, ergonomics, standard work, and continuous improvement.
• Identify opportunities to simplify project execution, improve predictability, and implement lessons learned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering.
• 5 7 years of Project Engineering experience.
• Demonstrated experience independently leading moderate-complexity NPI and sustaining projects from initiation through production release.
• Strong project planning, milestone management, action tracking, dependency coordination, and risk management skills.
• Ability to facilitate cross-functional coordination and stage-gate reviews while maintaining clear ownership of technical approvals.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to clearly and factually communicate project status, commitments, risks, decisions, and recovery needs.
• Ability to integrate customer requirements with manufacturing readiness, Quality, Validation, Regulatory, Supply Chain, Operations, and commercial considerations.
• Ability to maintain traceable, audit-ready project records and objective evidence.
• Ability to work with limited supervision, exercise sound judgment, and escalate significant technical or business decisions appropriately.

Preferred Qualifications

• Mechanical Engineering background.
• Experience in medical contract manufacturing.
• Proficiency in 3D modeling.
• Experience with SolidWorks.

Work Requirements

• Ability to coordinate cross-functional teams and manage project deliverables through production release.
• Ability to manage project priorities, dependencies, risks, and stakeholder expectations.
• Ability to support manufacturing readiness and maintain project documentation in accordance with applicable requirements.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are an equal opportunity employer and consider qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics.

Application

Interested candidates who meet the qualifications are encouraged to apply with an updated resume highlighting their Project Engineering experience, NPI and sustaining project leadership, and manufacturing project execution skills