Director, Program and Systems Engineering

About the Role

The Director of Program and Systems Engineering owns how Charm plans, builds, and delivers new systems across Biomass, Pyrolysis, and Injection workstreams by cultivating a deep understanding of Charm’s business strategy and technology roadmaps. You and your team will run the program portfolio and own the system-level architecture, requirements maintenance, and workcenter interfaces that tie feedstock processing, pyrolysis production, bio-oil and biochar inventory handling, and injection operations together.

You will build and lead a team of technical program managers and engineering staff members who fabricate, assemble, and commission new pyrolysis and injection systems, bringing designs from concept to real world, steady-state operation. In order to operate programs effectively, this role will also have the unique opportunity to partner with the Measurement, Reportinging, and Verification (MRV) and Materials Science & Engineering (MSE) teams; the MRV squad ensures every system or process Charm builds also gathers the requisite data to verify carbon removal, and the MSE team provides critical analytical and scientific support to ensure technology designs and operations are meeting bio-oil and biochar material specifications.

Reporting to the CTO, you will work directly and often with Charm's executive team, bringing program status, risks, and tradeoff recommendations to the decisions that shape the company. Ultimately, you and your team will become the critical link between engineering, operations, procurement, carbon accounting, materials science, and leadership as Charm scales.

Program Management & Strategic Impact

• Direct the full lifecycle of engineering programs, from requirements definition through design, testing, scale-up, and deployment.

• Build and own an integrated master schedule, budget, and risk register for all capital and product programs across Biomass, Pyrolysis, and Injection.

• Ensure milestone dates are established with ground-truth data from historical performance or collaboration with direct task owners, while maintaining a level of speed and execution emphasis matching Cham’s ambitious goals

• Drive weekly program cadence: status, critical path, decisions needed, escalations

• Translate customer offtake and CDR delivery commitments into capacity and delivery plans, matched with input from Sales and Finance departments

• Brief the executive team regularly on program health, risks, and tradeoff decisions, bringing recommendations rather than status alone; support customer and investor updates as needed

• Partner with the executive team to develop department Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), such as dollars per ton of Carbon Dioxide removed, system deployment schedules, pyrolysis and injection site throughput, bio-oil carbon content & material properties, etc.

• Lead your team to track progress against said OKRs to ensure accuracy and transparency across internal and external stakeholders.

• Deeply influence Charm’s strategy by steering company goal development and consistently bring new opportunities for resource allocation or fresh program prioritization to ensure maximized impact with our current staff.

Systems Engineering

• Own system architecture and requirements curation across feedstock handling, pyrolysis, bio-oil storage and transport, injection wells and surface systems, and biochar deployment. This will most effectively be done through partnership with design engineering.

• Define and control interfaces between subsystems, sites, and external partners.

• Establish and improve configuration management, design review, procurement, and engineering change control processes, both for internal and external manufacturing.

• Lead verification and validation planning, including commissioning and performance acceptance

• Ensure requirements and end performance of systems map to MRV, permitting, and safety obligations (e.g. registry protocols, air permits, NFPA and DOT classifications)

Fabrication, Assembly, and Commissioning

• Lead the team that fabricates, assembles, and commissions production systems

• Establish build sequencing, shop capacity planning, and daily/weekly execution plan to ensure physical build progress stays in lockstep with program-level schedule targets

• Run pre-commissioning planning, commissioning campaigns, and final site acceptance testing for both in-house manufactured systems and systems received from contract manufacturers in 2027+

• Define handoff criteria, training, and transition plans as systems move from Engineering to Operations ownership

• Ensure teams hold the line on safety: hazard reviews, lockout/tagout, and startup readiness before any system runs

Leadership & Cross-functional Partnership

• Champion a culture of safety, efficient execution, innovation, and accountability.

• Hire, develop, and lead technical program managers and engineering staff members

• Develop standards, templates, and tools (scheduling, requirements, risk) and proliferate throughout the Engineering department, and other Charm departments when appropriate

• Coach engineering leaders on program planning, estimation, and technical risk to improve design reliability and project execution

• Partner with Operations on site readiness, ramp plans, and lessons learned for systems already in production

• Partner with the Procurement team on long-lead purchasing strategies, Bill of Materials (BOM) management, and vendor qualification for high-criticality components

• Partner with the MRV team so system designs, instrumentation, and sampling plans meet registry protocol requirements, and tonnage forecasts reflect real program schedules

• Support Sales & Marketing with technical scoping, schedules, content updates, and cost estimates for new projects and partnerships

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering or a related technical field.

• 7-10+ years of experience in program or project management within an engineering or technology-driven environment (raw materials & chemical production, aerospace, oil & gas, carbon management/removal, or related sectors).

• Demonstrated success in managing hardware development programs and/or complex engineering initiatives.

• Experience building and managing resource-based schedules and delivering projects in fast-paced or startup environments.

• Strong analytical skills with experience tracking and reporting on technical and financial metrics.

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate technical issues and program status to both engineering teams and executive leadership.

• Proven ability to collaborate across disciplines, managing interdependencies and driving teams toward shared goals.

• Experience with enterprise-level collaboration and reporting tools (Jira, Confluence, Smartsheet, or equivalents).

Bonus, if You Bring

• Masters Degree in related technical discipline

• Certification in program/project management (PMP, etc.).

• Climate tech, chemical, or oil & gas industry experience

• Familiarity with sustainability-focused engineering, including carbon reduction strategies, environmentally responsible materials, measurement/reporting/verification (MRV), or lifecycle analysis (LCA).

• Exposure to coordinating material movement or logistics between corporate sites or between external partners.