Program Manager - Construction

Job description

Firefly Aerospace is a space and defense technology company on a mission to reliably and repeatedly launch, land, and operate space systems from Earth to the Moon and beyond. As the partner of choice for critical space missions, Firefly is the first commercial company to launch a satellite to orbit with 24-hour notice and the first company to achieve a successful Moon landing. Headquartered in north Austin, Texas, Firefly is looking for passionate, hardworking innovators to join our team and help fuel our successful trajectory into space. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Construction Program & Portfolio Execution • Own end-to-end execution of assigned construction and facilities project portfolios across Firefly campuses, from project approval and scope development through design, procurement, construction, commissioning, turnover, and closeout. • Establish and maintain a consistent construction project delivery methodology, including project phases, stage gates, required deliverables, documentation, and handoff criteria, appropriately scaled to project size and complexity. • Lead multiple concurrent construction projects, balancing resources, priorities, schedule, risk, funding, and operational requirements across campuses. • Develop and maintain integrated construction plans that sequence work around active manufacturing, production, testing, and engineering operations to minimize disruption to mission-critical activities. • Partner closely with Facilities, Production, Test, Engineering, EHS, Security, IT, Finance, and other internal stakeholders to define project requirements, manage operational impacts, and ensure organizational readiness. • Serve as the primary owner’s representative for major construction projects, ensuring projects are delivered safely, on schedule, within budget, and in accordance with approved scope and quality requirements. • Establish project execution strategies appropriate to delivery method, including design-bid-build, design-build, construction manager, general contractor, and specialty trade execution. Estimating, Scheduling & Cost Control • Develop and validate construction estimates from conceptual/ROM through definitive estimates, including quantity takeoffs, labor and material assumptions, contingency, escalation, and appropriate allowances. • Lead development of project budgets, schedules, cash flow forecasts, and execution plans in support of capital approval and annual planning processes. • Build, baseline, and maintain integrated project schedules using Microsoft Project or equivalent scheduling tools, including critical path analysis, resource loading, milestone tracking, and schedule recovery planning. • Develop and manage project spend plans and cash flow forecasts; track commitments, actual expenditures, forecast at completion, contingency, and variance to approved budget. • Provide estimating, schedule, risk, and constructability input for CapEx approval packages, governance reviews, and funding decisions. • Partner with Finance to appropriately classify project scope as capital or expense and ensure compliance with capitalization policies, thresholds, construction-in-progress accounting, and asset placed-in-service requirements. • Administer formal change management processes, including evaluation, pricing, documentation, negotiation, approval, and tracking of change orders and potential changes. • Identify cost and schedule trends early and develop corrective action plans to protect project commitments. Construction Risk, Safety & Governance • Establish and maintain project risk registers covering cost, schedule, safety, technical, operational, permitting, procurement, and construction risks. • Quantify risk exposure and develop mitigation and contingency strategies with clear ownership and trigger conditions. • Proactively escalate material risks, issues, and decisions with recommended courses of action and quantified cost, schedule, safety, and operational impacts. • Ensure projects comply with applicable building codes, permitting requirements, authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) approvals, life safety requirements, environmental requirements, and Firefly standards. • Partner with EHS to ensure contractors implement site-specific safety plans and comply with applicable requirements, including hot work, LOTO, confined space, excavation, and other high-risk construction activities. • Establish and enforce construction quality expectations, inspection requirements, punch-list management, commissioning readiness, and final turnover criteria. • Prepare and present project status, financial performance, schedule performance, risk, and decision requests to the Director of Facilities and executive leadership. Contractor, Vendor & Contract Management • Lead contractor and vendor selection activities, including development of scopes of work, RFPs, bid walks, bid leveling, technical evaluations, and recommendation of award. • Manage general contractor