Quest Defense is seeking a Senior Project Management Specialist to provide program planning, execution, coordination, and customer-facing project management support within a complex aerospace engineering environment.
The individual will partner with engineering leadership, technical teams, program stakeholders, and customer organizations to translate technical activities into clear execution plans, maintain schedules and commitments, facilitate operating rhythms, manage actions and risks, and ensure disciplined follow-through.
This role requires an experienced project-management professional who is comfortable working alongside highly technical engineering teams while maintaining the appropriate distinction between program-management ownership and technical authority. The successful candidate will be able to rapidly learn an established program, understand stakeholder relationships and customer expectations, and progressively assume independent ownership of day-to-day program-management activities.
Due to the nature of the work, applicants must be U.S. Citizens. This role is 100% onsite in the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio area.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide day-to-day project and program management support for aerospace engineering activities.
- Develop, maintain, and manage integrated project schedules, task plans, milestones, dependencies, and commitment dates.
- Translate technical-team inputs, priorities, and constraints into practical execution plans.
- Facilitate recurring program, technical, operating-review, and customer meetings.
- Prepare agendas, presentations, schedules, action registers, decision logs, and other materials required to support effective meetings.
- Capture decisions, actions, owners, due dates, and commitments and drive disciplined follow-through to closure.
- Coordinate across engineering disciplines, program leadership, customers, and other stakeholder organizations.
- Maintain visibility of program risks, schedule challenges, dependencies, and emerging issues.
- Identify schedule variances and support development and implementation of recovery plans.
- Proactively manage upcoming due dates and commitments to prevent actions and deliverables from becoming overdue.
- Escalate risks, issues, and resource constraints through the appropriate channels when additional support or decisions are required.
- Prepare and present weekly, monthly, and executive-level program status and operating-review inputs.
- Support technical teams by organizing complex or incomplete information into clear priorities, actions, and decision points.
- Maintain appropriate program-management records, repositories, trackers, and standard work.
- Support customer communications and ensure commitments, decisions, and follow-up activities are clearly documented.
- Develop a working understanding of technical program content sufficient to identify execution risks, ask effective questions, and coordinate appropriate resources without assuming engineering technical authority.
- Build effective working relationships across engineering, customer, program-management, and leadership organizations.
- Rapidly learn customer-specific systems, tools, processes, repositories, and operating rhythms.
- Support continuous improvement of program-management processes, reporting, visual management, and operating practices.
- Identify opportunities to improve execution through automation, visualization, data analytics, and emerging digital technologies where appropriate.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering, project management, business, operations, supply chain, or a related discipline. Equivalent relevant professional experience may be considered.
- 5+ years of project or program management experience supporting engineering, technical, aerospace, defense, manufacturing, or similarly complex programs.
- Demonstrated experience managing project schedules, milestones, dependencies, risks, actions, and due dates.
- Experience coordinating multidisciplinary technical or engineering teams.
- Demonstrated ability to facilitate meetings and convert technical discussions into clear decisions, actions, owners, and commitments.
- Experience preparing and communicating program status to technical teams, customers, and leadership.
- Working knowledge of Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Open Plan, Primavera P6, or other project scheduling applications.
- Strong Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint skills.
- Ability to structure incomplete, complex, or evolving information into practical execution plans.
- Ability to identify program risks, schedule impacts, dependencies, and escalation requirements.
- Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and consistent follow-through.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively with engineering, program leadership, and customer stakeholders.
- Ability to independently manage multiple priorities in a highly regulated environment.
- Ability to rapidly learn established program workflows, technical terminology, stakeholder relationships, reporting expectations, and customer operating rhythms.
- Ability to work full-time onsite in the Greater Cincinnati area.
- Due to the nature of the work, applicants must be U.S. Citizens.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience within the aerospace, aircraft-engine, or defense industries.
- Experience supporting aircraft-engine engineering, sustainment, life-management, durability, materials, corrosion, or similar technical programs.
- Previous experience in a customer-facing technical program-management role.
- Familiarity with aerospace engineering processes, including:
- Engineering change processes
- Technical and design reviews
- Customer or program gated-review processes
- Engineering deliverable and commitment management
- Experience working with government, military, or defense-related customers or programs.
- Experience supporting multidisciplinary engineering teams and coordinating technical deliverables across multiple organizations.
- Experience with Microsoft Project, Primavera P6, Smartsheet, Open Plan, or similar integrated scheduling tools.
- Familiarity with critical-path analysis, dependency management, schedule variance analysis, and recovery planning.
- Experience with Lean, FLIGHT DECK, Daily Management, or other structured problem-solving and operating-management methodologies.
- Experience preparing weekly, monthly, and executive operating-review materials.
- Experience with Power BI, Tableau, Spotfire, or similar data-visualization tools.
- Experience improving project-management processes through automation, analytics, generative AI, digital assistants, or similar emerging technologies.
- Experience working within controlled, export-regulated, government, or classified environments is beneficial but not required unless dictated by the specific program assignment.
- Familiarity with customer-specific engineering or PLM systems such as Teamcenter, SharePoint, or similar tools is beneficial.
Physical Requirements & Work Environment
- Primarily office-based with occasional shop-floor or engineering-area involvement.
- Significant computer, telephone, and video-conferencing work.
- Work is performed within highly regulated industries requiring strict adherence to customer, company, security, quality, and procedural requirements.
- Typical schedule is approximately 40 hours per week, with core working hours generally between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM.
- Periodic flexibility may be required to support customer commitments, critical meetings, or business deadlines.
- Ability to use personal transportation to travel between local customer or Quest locations when required.
The physical demands described above are representative of those required to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.
The QDSS Advantage
At Quest Defense, our advantage is purpose-driven work, collaborative teams, and complex challenges that push boundaries and create lasting impact. You will have the opportunity to grow your career while contributing to safety- and mission-critical programs that demand excellence and help shape the future of aerospace and defense.
What You’ll Find Here
- Work That Matters – Contribute to next-generation and mission-critical aerospace programs where your work has real-world impact.
- Growth That’s Supported – Competitive compensation, employer-matched 401(k), professional-development assistance, and opportunities for continued career growth.
- A Culture That Works – A collaborative, people-focused environment that values teamwork, innovation, accountability, and work-life balance.
Benefits
Competitive compensation and a comprehensive benefits package that may include medical, dental, life and disability coverage, 401(k) with employer match, and professional-development support, subject to applicable Quest Defense benefit plans and eligibility requirements.