Project Engineer, Senior

Position Title: Senior Project Engineer

Reports To: Director, Tailings & Capital Projects

Location: Coeur d'Alene, ID, must be able to travel to site domestically and internationally up to 25-50% of working hours

Department: Operations

Classification: Exempt / Full-Time

Purpose

As part of the Operations Group, the Senior Projects Engineer plays a critical role in ensuring Hecla's capital investments across its multi-mine portfolio are well-justified, rigorously scoped, and effectively executed. This is a non-operational corporate role that provides oversight, advisory services, and analytical support to site operations teams and senior leadership on capital planning and project delivery.

Position Summary:

Hecla Mining is in an active growth phase, with capital projects underway and planned across multiple operating sites in North America. The Senior Project Manager will directly influence how the company allocates capital, from annual budget review through stage gate authorization and post-investment evaluation. This role requires a seasoned engineer with broad project management experience who can work across disciplines, jurisdictions, and organizational levels to raise the quality and consistency of capital project delivery company wide.

The ideal candidate is a self-directed professional, equally comfortable working independently on technical analysis and collaborating with cross-functional teams. They will bring a mix of hands-on project execution experience and the analytical rigor to evaluate projects from an owner's perspective.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

• Capital Budget Review: Assist with review of annual mine capital budgets and Long-Range Plan capital estimates, with focus on confirming reasonableness, proposed timing, and adequacy of supporting data. Identify projects requiring stage gate review and flag gaps in justification or scope definition before funding is authorized.
• Stage Gate Oversight: Own and continuously improve the corporate stage gate framework. Monitor progress of major projects against approved stage gate commitments; provide structured reporting to senior leadership on project status, cost trends, and schedule adherence.
• Conceptual and Preliminary Engineering: Support corporate-level studies by assisting with development of conceptual and preliminary plant and infrastructure designs and related capital cost estimates across mining, civil, mechanical, and electrical disciplines.
• Advisory Services to Site Teams: Provide project planning, engineering management, cost estimating, and scheduling guidance to Technical Services staff and mine site teams as requested. Help site teams translate project objectives into well-defined engineering requirements and executable scopes.
• Capital Benchmarking and Tools: Develop, maintain, and refine tools, datasets, and benchmarks used to support budgeting and validate capital cost estimates across the project portfolio. Build institutional knowledge that improves estimate quality over time.
• Post-Investment Review: Support post-investment review (PIR) of completed capital projects to assess whether objectives were achieved, capture lessons learned, and feed insights back into planning and estimating practices.
• Third-Party Contracting: Develop enforceable scopes of work for consultants, vendors, and contractors. Review and evaluate proposals; support contract administration to ensure third-party deliverables meet quality, schedule, and cost expectations.

Safety, Health & Environmental Responsibilities and Accountabilities

Include, but are not limited to:

• Display due diligence in safety, health, and environmental matters and lead by example to ensure successful implementation of Safety & Health and Environmental Management Systems
• Promote open communication and cooperation across all operations
• Ensure that all personnel are informed of safety, health, and environmental issues related to tailings storage facilities (TSFs) and waste rock storage facilities (WRSFs)
• Participate in safety audits and inspections of TSFs and WRSFs, supporting site personnel in achieving desired outcomes
• Assist in the development of emergency preparedness frameworks for TSFs and WRSFs
• Participate in incident investigations related to tailings and waste rock management and ensure compliance with safety, health, and regulatory requirements
• Verify appropriate qualifications for personnel working on tailings facilities and contribute to environmental reporting
• Ensure project safety, health, and environmental considerations are properly integrated into project planning and execution
• Verify that contractors and consultants meet Hecla's safety, health, and environmental requirements

Education and Credentials

• Bachelor's degree in Mining, Mechanical, Civil, or Electrical Engineering required.
• Minimum 10 years of diverse experience planning, designing, and executing heavy industry capital projects; preference for candidates with 12-15 years, including experience in a multi-site or corporate advisory role.
• Experience in the mining industry is strongly preferred.
• Professional Engineer (P.E. or P.Eng.) designation preferred.

Skills and Knowledge

• Broad working knowledge of mining-related engineering disciplines (e.g. mining, civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering)
• Demonstrated experience with capital project scope development from the owner's perspective, including early-stage and conceptual projects. Ability to bridge project objectives and engineering requirements.
• Technical leadership skills applied to managing both in-house staff and external engineering consultants.
• Strong cost estimating skills across the full range of estimate classes, from order-of-magnitude through definitive estimates.
• Proficiency in Critical Path Method (CPM) schedule development and analysis; able to develop and interrogate project schedules.
• Working knowledge of Earned Value Analysis (EVA) and other best-practice project forecasting and performance measurement methods.
• Financial modeling proficiency, including advanced spreadsheet skills for scenario analysis, benchmarking, and budget forecasting.
• Knowledge of contract structures and ability to develop enforceable scopes of work for third-party consultants, vendors, and contractors.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English; ability to prepare clear executive-level summaries and presentations.
• Some proficiency in Spanish and/or French is beneficial, though not required, given Hecla's operating footprint.
• Strong commitment to safety and environmental management principles; demonstrated ability to translate those principles into effective project designs and execution plans.

Working Conditions

• Ideally, this is a corporate office-based role located in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho but alternate arrangements will be considered for the right candidate
• Comfortable with periodic domestic and international travel to mine sites and project locations on a flexible schedule; some travel to remote locations is required.
• Able to work effectively across multiple time zones and with multicultural teams.

About the Team

The Operations Group consists of Hecla's operating mines - Greens Creek (Alaska), Lucky Friday (Idaho), and Keno Hill (Yukon), as well as corporate growth initiatives. This role joins a small, high-impact team and reports directly to Director - Tailings & Capital Projects. The position interacts regularly with mine GMs, site engineering leads, site PM's and senior corporate leadership including the VP of Operations and COO.