Director, Facilities & Engineering
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Cambridge, MA, US
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Not specified
- Employment
- Contract
- Experience
- 12+ years
- Category
- Not specified
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related technical field.
- A minimum of 12 years of progressively responsible facilities, engineering, maintenance, or related experience in biotechnology, pharmaceutical, or other highly regulated manufacturing, including sign
- Demonstrated knowledge of cGMP, FDA expectations, and engineering/maintenance practices in a regulated manufacturing environment.
- Comprehensive knowledge of building infrastructure, critical utility systems, manufacturing equipment, maintenance and reliability programs, and facility lifecycle management.
- Experience leading complex engineering or facilities projects, shutdowns, contractors, and cross-functional technical teams.
- Experience with CMMS platforms and strong working knowledge of maintenance records, work-order prioritization, preventive maintenance, and spare-parts management.
- Experience participating in regulatory inspections or quality audits and supporting compliant documentation and issue resolution.
- Strong leadership, communication, problem-solving, prioritization, vendor-management, and stakeholder-management skills.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office and related business systems.
Nice to have
- Advanced degree in engineering, business, or a related discipline.
- Experience in cell therapy, biologics, aseptic manufacturing, or other complex cGMP manufacturing environments.
- Construction management, capital planning, commissioning/startup, or reliability-centered maintenance experience.
- Professional certification or licensure relevant to engineering, facilities, maintenance, project management, or reliability.
Full description
At Vericel Corporation, we are pioneers in advanced cell therapies for sports medicine and severe burn care, transforming patient lives through cutting-edge regenerative medicine. Our commitment to innovation, patient-centered focus, and scientific excellence drives us to develop groundbreaking treatments including MACI (knee cartilage repair), Epicel and Nexobrid (burn care).
Position Summary:
The Director, Facilities & Engineering provides site leadership for facilities, utilities, manufacturing equipment, process instrumentation, and engineering services supporting a regulated biotechnology manufacturing environment. The role is accountable for safe, compliant, reliable, and cost-effective operation of site assets across their lifecycle, including design, startup, commissioning, qualification support, maintenance, troubleshooting, optimization, upgrades, and retirement. The Director leads the Facilities & Engineering organization, sets maintenance and reliability strategy, manages departmental resources and budgets, and partners cross-functionally to support production, quality, compliance, and business objectives.
Schedule: This position is onsite Monday - Friday, primarily at our Cambridge, MA office. Some time will also be required in our Burlington, MA office as well.
Key Responsibilities:
Leadership & Organization
- Lead, develop, and retain a high-performing Facilities & Engineering team; establish clear accountabilities, goals, succession plans, and development priorities.
- Provide coaching, performance feedback, recognition, and corrective action as appropriate, and ensure managers effectively carry people-leadership responsibilities through the organization.
- Establish departmental priorities, resource plans, training plans, and performance metrics aligned with site and company objectives.
- Promote a culture of safety, quality, compliance, collaboration, ownership, and continuous improvement.
Facilities, Engineering & Reliability
- Own the site strategy for facilities, critical utilities, manufacturing equipment, process instruments, building infrastructure, and associated lifecycle support.
- Ensure robust preventive and corrective maintenance programs, asset reliability practices, spare-parts strategy, and effective use of the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS).
- Partner with Manufacturing and other stakeholders to plan maintenance windows, shutdowns, emergency work, and resource allocation while minimizing operational disruption.
- Oversee troubleshooting, root-cause resolution, equipment and facility upgrades, and continuous-improvement initiatives that improve reliability, capacity, compliance, and total cost of ownership.
- Ensure appropriate prioritization and execution of scheduled work orders and emergency work requests in a 24/7 biotechnology manufacturing environment.