10120 Senior Manager, Quality & Performance Assurance

Role Details

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.

What Your Job Will Be Like:

Organization 10100, The Enterprise Excellence Center, has the primary mission of stewarding Sandia's mission, contractor, and quality assurance systems, including enterprise assessments, risk and issue management, policy management, performance analytics, and continuous improvement. The purpose of this center is to illuminate the path to excellence by helping the organization become more effective and efficient in carrying out its missions in ways that instill trust with our employees and customers.

This role is one of two Senior Managers reporting to the Director of Enterprise Excellence. As the Quality & Performance Assurance Senior Manager, one will be responsible for refining and leading Sandia National Laboratories towards excellence in performance assurance by refining and modeling the related tools, processes, and behaviors required. They will steward and own Sandia’s Quality system and related policy, while demonstrating how Sandia is meeting its commitments to NNSA, Sandia’s leadership, and other customers. This senior manager is responsible for three departments: Enterprise Assessments (10121), Performance Analytics (10122), and Enterprise Risk & Issues Management (10124). However, they also partner closely with departments in 10110 (i.e., Lean Excellence and Design teams, Contractor Assurance, and Labs Policy Management) as well as assurance partners across the labs.

Success in this role will be measured on tangible results achieved by the application of assurance tools and thinking, and to improve the way we work from the lenses of the customer and end-user. The activity to achieve those results (events, direct observation, experiments, etc.) are an important means to that end. A successful Senior Manager will lead their team to be able to distinguish activity from results and ensure that there is a constant drive for results. Consequently, themselves and their team needs to be able to effectively implement a wide set of methods and processes that enable tangible results.

On any given day, one may be called upon to:

• Lead the Assurance Excellence team along with the 10110 Senior Manager (and other assurance colleagues across the labs, e.g., safety, security, audit, and IT) to improve, integrate, and maintain the infrastructure, tools, templates, and processes required for all items assurance across the Labs

• Interact with division and technical project leadership to improve the effectiveness of quality systems in mission execution organizations

• Be a thought leader for application of risk-based thinking in planning of internal and external quality assessments

• Create a systems approach to steward the corporate third-party quality registration process by working with both division and line organizations and work to integrate with other management system and associated registration activities (e.g., ISO 14001)

• Guide the development of actionable metrics for the health of Sandia

• Report on status and plans to senior leaders, customers, and oversight to maintain transparency and demonstrate results

Due to the nature of the work, the selected applicant must be able to work onsite.

Qualifications We Require:

• A Bachelor’s degree in a relevant Business or STEM field, plus 10 years of related experience; or equivalent experience and/or achievements that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform the duties of the job

• Experience in leading assurance functions

• The ability to acquire and maintain a DOE Q-level security clearance

Qualifications We Desire:

• An Advanced degree (Master’s or PhD) in Business, Engineering, or a Scientific field

• 5 or more years of leadership and/or managerial experience aligned with this position

• Experience implementing Contractor Assurance Systems and Quality Management Systems (e.g., ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001, and DOE O 414.1D) and Quality Systems audit practices

• Knowledge of learning organizational concepts (mental models, systems thinking, shared vision, team learning, personal mastery, etc.)

• The demonstrated ability to establish a vision and strategy for a team and then drive strategy to action

• Proficiency in systems thinking, including identifying and understanding the inter-relationships between people, processes, and behavior

• A demonstrated ability to lead change initiatives and drive process excellence, including an ability to measurably improve processes from end-to-end

• Experience implementing management, engineering, or policy systems lab-wide

• Outstanding verbal and written communication skills, including audience awareness

• Experience applying innovative approaches to the integration of functions across a corporate organization

• Demonstrable “big picture” or systems thinking that informs and enables tactical execution of transformation activities

• A proven track record of leading operations in a multi-site environment

• A confident ability to prioritize projects and make quick, sound decisions

• A change-agent focus on increasing the value quality systems to the customer

• Experience with defect prevention and Lean Six Sigma methodologies

• Experience developing Senior management-level strategies

• The proven ability to collaborate with business and technical functions, and assume responsibility for resolving complex issues

• The ability to communicate a compelling purpose, lead change cross-organizationally, and inspire and motivate people

• An integrative thinker with a demonstrated ability to solve complex, multi-faceted problems with due consideration for business and strategic consequences

• A willingness and the ability to drive continuous improvement in support of safety, security, quality, delivery, and cost initiatives

• Experience in supporting technical projects at Sandia with project management, quality, and/or systems engineering capabilities

About Our Team:

In Enterprise Excellence, we’re not satisfied with business as usual. We seek to apply learning, innovation, speed, and improvement into Sandia by working that way ourselves and showing the benefits of lean thinking, quality, and overall assurance. Our team moves fast, constantly looks for better ways, and is focused on making Sandia successful. We are constant champions and advocates for our customers and are successful when we provide value to our diverse customer base. We try new things, we fail, and we try again. Resilience in change, whole-hearted leadership, the ability to quickly adjust course, and a love of learning (and applying what you learn) are key to individual and team success.

While there are specific straight forward aspects of the job related to our role in assurance, every aspect of the job is not always clear-cut. We seek team members who have a healthy tolerance for ambiguity, are critical thinkers, creative way-makers, and respectful challengers of the status quo. Our work is about systems thinking and intentional improvements; we love to figure out how the pieces fit together and identify gaps in the system to improve. Our work matters; we are helping change the way that Sandia and the Nuclear Security Enterprise work to become more efficient and effective.

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 vacations, 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:

Sandia is required by DOE 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 obtain and 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.

Salary Range:

$138,600 - $235,500

*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.

Job ID: 689503

Sandia National Laboratories provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.