Engineering COE Lead

Job Description

POSITION DESCRIPTION

 

Local Position Title

Engineering COE Lead

Job Profile  

 

56911111 - Assoc. Dir., Engineering

CCF B/P/L

400, M2

Division

GAHM, Upper Hutt, NZ

Reports to (Title)

Site Manager

Written By

Arjen Vermolen

Date

October 2026

Our Company

Our company invents for a more hopeful tomorrow. our company is inventing medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases through our diversified portfolio of prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies and animal health products. We have always been and always will be inventing, and we do it for the single greatest purpose: Life.

Our ability to excel depends on the integrity, knowledge, imagination, skill, diversity and teamwork of our people. To this end, we strive to create an environment of mutual respect, encouragement and teamwork. As part of our global team, you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with talented and dedicated colleagues while developing and expanding your career.

Our company in Australia and New Zealand operates in a highly regulated and competitive environment. Our success largely depends on our ability to build customer loyalty and optimize the return on customer segments. Success is often dependent on getting new products to market quickly and reimbursed at a price acceptable to both the market and the organization. Our success depends on high levels of market penetration and effective management of emerging and existing customers. This requires a high level of collaboration with stakeholders and a sense of urgency in our activities.

About this Role

As Engineering COE Lead, you bring strategic vision and operational excellence together.

The Upper Hutt site relies on safe, compliant and reliable assets, infrastructure and engineering capabilities to maintain global supply and deliver its long-term manufacturing strategy. You have a direct impact by ensuring the site’s equipment, facilities, capital investments and validation systems provide the capacity, reliability and cost competitiveness required now and into the future.

As a member of the Site Leadership Team, you help shape site strategy, operational performance and continuous improvement priorities. You are accountable for the site’s Engineering Centre of Excellence (COE), spanning Capital Projects, Maintenance and Reliability, Validation, Facilities and Shared Services.

You lead a multidisciplinary organization of approximately 35 employees, excluding contractors, through six direct reports. You build organizational capability and management systems that enable strong performance across people, safety, quality, delivery and cost.

  

 

Primary Activities and Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Leadership & Strategy - As a member of the Site Leadership Team, contribute to the strategic direction and long-term success of the Upper Hutt site:
  • Develop and adapt site strategy to identify and prioritize key site projects and KPIs, and track strategic performance through senior leadership reviews.
  • Sponsor site strategic workstreams and translate their strategies into specific site and Engineering COE priorities, targets and projects.
  • Strengthen Site Leadership Team effectiveness through collaboration, communication and an open feedback culture.
  • Foster an inclusive culture where colleagues feel respected, valued and able to contribute at their best. (e.g. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives).

• Development of Managers and Teams:
  • Lead and develop a team of 3 managers and 3 specialists providing guidance, training, and performance evaluations.
  • Coach and continuously improve daily and weekly cross-functional performance management forums to drive prioritization, alignment and accountability.
  • Conduct routine 1:1s and on-floor coaching to strengthen management systems, develop team capability and actively manage succession planning.
  • Embed a culture of continuous improvement by empowering teams to solve problems at the right level leveraging lean manufacturing methodologies.
  • Promote a strong safety and compliance culture through active leadership presence on the manufacturing floor.

• Operational Leadership and Daily Management:
  • Maintain integrated management systems that support the value stream through reliable assets, compliant validation and effective project delivery, while making risks and improvement opportunities visible and driving timely resolution.
  • Maintain effective operational review meetings and shop-floor engagement processes to ensure performance meets budget and forecast expectations and all legal, safety, quality and financial compliance requirements are met.
  • Own relevant site-wide Safety and Quality Systems and mentor Subsystem Owners to establish more effective and efficient standards.
  • Be accountable for people, safety, quality, delivery and cost performance across the Engineering COE.

• Specifically, within this role you will:
  • Shape the site's long-range asset, infrastructure and capital investment strategy.
  • Govern the capital portfolio to ensure compliant, on-time and on-budget project delivery.
  • Ensure maintenance and reliability capabilities support safe, compliant and reliable supply.
  • Ensure risk-based validation strategies are embedded across routine operations and capital projects.
  • Lead Facilities and Shared Services to deliver safe, reliable and cost-effective support to the value stream.

• Ensure all legal requirements are met, including but not limited to Environmental Health and Safety (EHS):
  • Ensure all hazards and environmental aspects in your areas are identified, documented, assessed and controlled in accordance with EHS procedures.
  • Develop EHS objectives, targets and performance indicators, establish EHS improvement projects and review progress.
  • Ensure employees receive appropriate EHS training, instruction and supervision to perform their work safely and responsibly.
  • Compile EHS reports as required by management, regulatory authorities and others.
  • Identify and record EHS monitoring requirements and implement appropriate monitoring.
  • Ensure scheduled audits and inspections (for which you are responsible) are conducted and necessary corrective actions are developed and completed. 

Key competencies, skills & experience required:

• A strong team player with excellent communication, organisational and interpersonal skills and ability to operate in a matrix environment
• Demonstrated Continuous Improvement, Strategic and Change Management skills to define and translate high level strategies in operational and interpersonal expectations
• Strong understanding of maintenance and reliability, validation, facilities management and capital project delivery, ideally within a GMP-regulated environment.
• Significant leadership experience within a GMP-regulated biological, pharmaceutical, biotechnology or related manufacturing environment.
• Business and financial acumen with advanced knowledge and application of Engineering finance and economics.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification with academic working and thinking level in Engineering, Science, Biotechnology or a related discipline.

 

Enterprise Leadership Skills

The selected leader persona outlines the 15 Enterprise Leadership Skills and expectations applicable to the position and how to apply the leadership skills to the role. You may click the links below to learn more details. Foundationally, all employees must exhibit the skills as described under the Individual Leader persona.

Select the relevant leader persona from the list below, and delete non-relevant personas

• Multi-Team Leader
• Select the 4-5 Enterprise Leadership Skills most applicable to this position, noting that all ELS apply.

☒ Execution Excellence, ☒ Networking and Partnerships, ☒ Strategic Planning, ☒ Coaching and Development, ☒ Decision Making

Ways of Working
·      Win as one team

·      Focus on what matters

·      Act with urgency

·      Experiment, learn and adapt

·      Embrace diversity and inclusion

·      Speak up and be open-minded

Our Values

·      Patients First

·      Ethics and Integrity

·      Respect for People

·      Innovation and Scientific Excellence

 

Disclaimer

The information in this description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by colleagues within this classification.  It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of colleagues assigned to this job.

Additional location(s) Compensation Information:

Required Skills:

Applied Mathematics, Detail-Oriented, Engineering Standards, Estimation and Planning, Improvement Projects, Manufacturing Scale-Up, People Leadership, Pharmaceutical Quality Assurance, Professional Engineering, Resource Forecasting, Site Supervision, Team Collaboration, Technical Mentoring, Technical Problem-Solving

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails. 

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

VISA Sponsorship:

Travel Requirements:

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Not Applicable

Shift:

Valid Driving License:

Hazardous Material(s):

Job Posting End Date:

10/30/2026

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.