Center 2900 Director - Surety & Design Engineering & Weapons Quality

Posting Duration:

This posting will be open for application submissions for a minimum of seven (7) calendar days, including the 'posting date'. Sandia reserves the right to extend the posting date at any time.

NNSA Requirements for MedPEDs:

If you have a Medical Portable Electronic Device (MedPED), such as a pacemaker, defibrillator, drug-releasing pump, hearing aids, or diagnostic equipment and other equipment for measuring, monitoring, and recording body functions such as heartbeat and brain waves, if employed by Sandia National Laboratories you may be required to comply with NNSA security requirements for MedPEDs.

If you have a MedPED and you are selected for an on-site interview at Sandia National Laboratories, there may be additional steps necessary to ensure compliance with NNSA security requirements prior to the interview date.

Salary Range:

$228,700 - $388,800

*Salary range is estimated, and actual salary will be determined after consideration of the selected candidate's experience and qualifications, and application of any approved geographic salary differential.

What Your Job Will Be Like:

We would like to paint a picture of what your Job will be like as the Director leading Center 2900, with a story of "who we are" as an organization.

**

Have you ever given thanks for what didn't happen? A measurement awry. A requirement orphaned. A flight test, silenced. An adversary, aided. A mushroom cloud.

In Center 2900, we are a breed of engineers and scientists, technologists and business professionals who deeply connect to our duty to be sure what we don't want to happen, doesn't, and what should happen, does. We roll up our sleeves to thoughtfully counterbalance unyielding schedule pressures with practical solutions. We unleash technical conscience and technical empathy that lead to better options for the teams we serve.

We cross-cut Sandia. Embedded in every ND program, and several beyond, we bring every major engineering discipline to bear, along with deep industry experience. No school exists for the expertise we cultivate; therefore, we teach. It's not our day job, yet we've reached thousands.

From the most intricate circuit to the all-up-round, from the most fundamental measurement to the most complex qualification, we guide the "how" of our engineering to assure the highest technical confidence can be achieved, despite a system peppered with constraints.

Not for the glory, for when we're successful, it is often akin to proving a negative. But we know it matters. We are Center 2900, and we are here to serve in this special way, honoring all that lies below the surface and all that is the foundation of products that meet requirements and the needs of the Nation.

**

If this story resonates and you find yourself feeling passion for the ethos and values of Center 2900 and for having influence across the Laboratories and the National Security Enterprise, you will want to consider applying for this opportunity.

As the Director of Center 2900, Surety & Design Engineering & Weapons Quality, you will lead a highly technical service organization that is the backbone for our Nuclear Deterrence programs and many beyond. You will have extensive leadership interaction with the Nuclear Deterrence Directors and other senior leaders across all of the Sandia divisions to ensure partnering for mission success.

The organizations within Center 2900 are:

• 2910 - Surety Engineering II

In addition to the Surety Engineering I (2920) mission of increasing confidence in high-consequence systems by preventing defects and reducing risk, the Surety Engineering II Group (2910) develops and executes comprehensive, threat-informed programs to help ensure the resilience of Sandia's national security products, processes, and infrastructures to full-spectrum adversarial subversion - especially threats rooted in globalization.

• 2920 - Surety Engineering I

The Surety Engineering Group (2920) increases confidence in high-consequence systems by preventing defects and reducing risk. We integrate R&D capabilities across multiple mission areas by strategically engaging our Labs-wide network and equipping our team with a diverse skillset to solve a variety of technical challenges. We advance technologies and preserve knowledge to ensure a safer world for the future.

• 2930 - Weapon Safety Engineering & Analysis

The Weapon Safety Engineering and Analysis Group provides specialized technical services in the areas of weapon response analysis; electrical circuit and electro-magnetic modeling, simulation and analysis; and nuclear safety engineering in support of the Nuclear Deterrence mission. Our integrated group of nuclear safety, weapon response, and electrical analysis subject matter experts team across the Laboratory and the Nuclear Security Enterprise to develop an array of products (analyses, documentation, and technical bases) that support the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear deterrent.

• 2940 - Primary Standards Laboratory

The Primary Standards Laboratory (2940) develops and maintains primary standards traceable to national standards and calibrates and certifies customer reference standards. The qualification and reliability of every product in the Nuclear Weapon (NW) stockpile is based upon measurements traceable to the PSL.

• 2950 - Design Engineering I

The Design Engineering Group (2950) partners with clients to engineer high-quality product definition to solve national security challenges. We are the design definition experts that help engineers create better products. We have expertise in design tools, modeling and analysis techniques, GD&T, DFM, and IPC standards.

• 2960 - Design Engineering II

The Design Engineering Group (2950) partners with clients to engineer high-quality product definition to solve national security challenges. We are the design definition experts that help engineers create better products. We have expertise in design tools, modeling and analysis techniques, GD&T, DFM, and IPC standards.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Lead Center 2900's unique role in independent assurance of technical quality, nuclear safety and primary standards, and Nuclear Deterrence Quality Management System, including delegated government responsibilities.

• Steward Center 2900's core capabilities in mechanical and electrical CAD in our Design Engineering groups, and ensuring delivery of design definition expertise to the Nuclear Deterrence and SPP portfolios.

• Steward the Primary Standards Laboratory, ensuring its health, sustainability, delivery, and delegated role on behalf of the government to conduct Technical Surveys across the enterprise.

• Steward Sandia's nuclear safety assurance capability and technical leadership in abnormal electrical environments and critical electrical modeling capabilities central to qualification.

• Ensure on-time, high confidence delivery of weapon response to Systems.

• Ensure Systems and Component delivery of products and testers through design agency qualification with high confidence that products and testers meet requirements, as exhibited by the issuance of Qualification Evaluation Releases with the highest integrity.

• Steward NNSA's Product Acceptance (Diamond Stamp) Delegation role, ensuring trust, independence, and confidence in the delegated role. Continuously improve our inspection processes and systematic elimination of defects through corrective actions.

• Serve Sandia's Production Agency through our service and assurance roles in technical quality, calibration, mechanical and electrical CAD, vendor/supplier QMS certifications and process qualifications.

• Provide a central leadership role for the Nuclear Security Enterprise Technical Quality community, including shaping policy, implementation, and a consistent and defensible voice for technical quality that underpins a credible nuclear deterrent.

• Ensure a healthy, thriving distributed organization where the teams located in SNL/CA, Kansas City and Pantex feel connected and valued as an essential part of the organization.

• Serve as the trusted zipper interface to NNSA's Weapon Quality Division Director and a trusted partner to the Sandia Field Office Quality Team.

• Serve Systems and Component product realization teams in addressing emerging quality issues and non-conformances in production of products and measurement and test equipment in a defensible, structured manner that honors our core principles and Sandia's FFRDC and Design Agency role.

• Maintain the over 50 percent reduction of security incidents from levels in 2019 from the leadership team driving tone and commitment to staff personal prevention plans. Maintain the principle-based execution of the use and stewardship of office space that honors the needs of Sandia as a whole.

• Lead Sandia's Model Based Definition and Design for Manufacturability strategic efforts which will be the backbone the digital engineering, producibility and a digital thread across the enterprise.

• Steward the extensive training programs fielded by the Center, ensuring these enduring programs are healthy and sustainable and that staff are rewarded for their leadership and service, as well as the Technical Quality Pillar of the Common Engineering Environment, the storefront for the hundreds of trainings the Center offers, inside and outside Sandia.

• Responsible for "Provide Quality Leadership" process elements, assessing and monitoring the implementation and effectiveness of the ND Quality Management System.

Qualifications We Require:

• Bachelor's and Master's degree in Engineering or Science field

• Minimum of 8 years leadership experience managing large teams

• Experience and technical understanding of product realization for high consequence systems

• Ability to travel up to 20%

• Active Q-level security clearance (or DOD equivalent) with the ability to obtain Sigma 15 clearance

Qualifications We Desire:

• Experience in developing geographically disperse organizations (CA, KC, PX team).

• Demonstrated experience developing an effective organizational culture for a service organization, which requires the skills to motivate a team that is primarily behind the scenes and often overlooked.

• Demonstrated experience and leadership credibility essential for executing this unique service role as a Director who must enable and empower peers behind the scenes, providing a trusted and independent check and balance.

• Experience and understanding of Technical Quality, Nuclear Safety, Product Definition and Product Realization for Nuclear Deterrence.

• Demonstrated experience inspiring leadership commitment and confidence in the principles of Always/Never and/or the commitment to prevention, identification, and mitigation of risk.

• Demonstrated experience of a willingness to mindfully, contextually, and with the greatest judgment and restraint, ask the difficult questions that stimulate lasting change.

• Demonstrated skills in "walking the talk" of thinking and acting proactively, not reactively.

• Demonstrated skills in synthesizing a large amount of imperfect information to rapidly make meaningful connections to establish a unified voice and use it wisely.

• Demonstrated skills in exercising an independent role to de-escalate and stabilize situations.

• Demonstrated skills in structured, disciplined problem solving at the right level to reduce churn.

• Demonstrated skills in empathizing to understand both technical and interpersonal barriers to comprehensive solutions.

• Demonstrated skills utilizing lessons learned to make informed decisions about current and future products.

• Demonstrated skills rejecting false choices and mobilizing the power of integrative complexity to unearth both/and solutions that are flexible and creative to an environment where we must deliver rapidly AND assure Always/Never.

• Demonstrated ability to see the big picture and "bring it home" to the team.

• Demonstrated skill in building genuine relationships based on trust and authenticity and an ethos that anything can be accomplished if you don't care who gets the credit.

• Demonstrated skill in mobilizing organizational strengths that are differentiated from the whole in order to provide crucial input to Sandia's direction.

• Demonstrated competency in having the courage to do the right thing, even when it is inconvenient.

• Demonstrated skill in navigating the most complex, escalated external conflicts and driving them to resolution with nuanced judgment and strategic acumen.

• Demonstrated skill in developing leaders at all levels of the organization.

About Our Team:

As noted in the "Who We Are" story above, Center 2900 is a special organization that plays a unique role at Sandia. As one of Sandia's only centralized technical enabling organizations, we are proud to be unsung heroes assuring delivery to the Nuclear Deterrence and SPP missions with the highest technical confidence that products will meet requirements. Our senior leadership team have values that reflect our special commitment to what we consider to be a sacred role of being a trusted conscience for the systems and product realization teams we serve.

The values that guide our center:

• Influence through Service

• Calm with confidence

• Thrive in the Gray

• Be Technically Sound

• Ensure Always/Never

About Sandia:

Sandia National Laboratories is the nation's premier science and engineering lab for national security and technology innovation, with teams of specialists focused on cutting-edge work in a broad array of areas. Some of the main reasons we love our jobs:

• Challenging work with amazing impact that contributes to security, peace, and freedom worldwide

• Extraordinary co-workers

• Some of the best tools, equipment, and research facilities in the world

• Career advancement and enrichment opportunities

• Flexible work arrangements for many positions include 9/80 (work 80 hours every two weeks, with every other Friday off) and 4/10 (work 4 ten-hour days each week) compressed workweeks, part-time work, and telecommuting (a mix of onsite work and working from home)

• Generous vacation, strong medical and other benefits, competitive 401k, learning opportunities, relocation assistance and amenities aimed at creating a solid work/life balance*

World-changing technologies. Life-changing careers. Learn more about Sandia at: http://www.sandia.gov

*These benefits vary by job classification.

Security Clearance:

Position requires a Department of Energy (DOE) Q security clearance to start, or equivalent active security clearance with another U.S. government agency (e.g., DOD). Sandia is required by DOE directive to conduct a pre-employment drug test and background review that includes checks of personal references, credit, law enforcement records, and employment/education verifications. Applicants for employment need to be able to maintain a DOE Q-level security clearance, which requires U.S. citizenship. If you hold more than one citizenship (i.e., of the U.S. and another country), your ability to obtain a security clearance may be impacted.

Applicants offered employment with Sandia are subject to a federal background investigation to meet the requirements for access to classified information or matter if the duties of the position require a DOE security clearance. Substance abuse or illegal drug use, falsification of information, criminal activity, serious misconduct or other indicators of untrustworthiness can cause a clearance to be denied or terminated by DOE, resulting in the inability to perform the duties assigned and subsequent termination of employment.

EEO:

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status and any other protected class under state or federal law.

Job ID: 695101

Job Family: EX

Regular/Temporary Position: R

Full/Part-Time Status: F