Principal Projects Engineer

The Principal Projects Engineer is accountable for establishing and maintaining integrated project planning, coordination, governance and delivery assurance across Cyprium's delivery projects, including restart, commissioning and growth portfolio.

The role provides the central integration function connecting technical, operational, contractor and project workstreams to ensure executives have clear visibility of project status, critical path risks, dependencies, recovery actions and delivery confidence.

The Principal Projects Engineer acts as the owner of integrated project reporting, critical path management and delivery assurance across Cyprium's project portfolio and provides a single source of truth for project status and delivery performance.

The role partners closely with the CTO, COO, General Manager Nifty Operations, Study Manager, project owners, contractors and functional leaders.

The role does not assume accountability for project execution, operational performance or contractor management. Accountability for delivery remains with the relevant project, operational or contractor leaders. The primary role will support execution planning for projects that pass study gates toward execution, preparing the works plan, driving the base line for the projects execution, and enabling governance of projects as they move from technical studies to operations commissioning.

Key Responsibilities

Integrated Project Planning and Coordination

• Develop and maintain integrated project schedules across restart, commissioning and growth activities.
• Coordinate interfaces between technical, operational, commercial and contractor workstreams.
• Establish and maintain a single source of truth for project sequencing, milestones and dependencies.
• Facilitate cross-functional planning and integration activities.
• Ensure project priorities remain aligned with business objectives and strategic outcomes.

Delivery Assurance and Critical Path Management

• Monitor project performance against approved schedules, milestones and delivery commitments.
• Maintain visibility of critical path activities, schedule dependencies and float consumption.
• Identify emerging delivery risks, delays and execution constraints.
• Develop recovery scenarios and mitigation strategies in collaboration with delivery leaders.
• Provide independent challenge of project assumptions, forecasts and delivery plans.
• Support management decision-making through timely escalation of material risks and issues.

Commissioning and Operational Readiness Integration

• Coordinate visibility of construction, commissioning, testing and handover activities.
• Maintain integrated commissioning and readiness reporting across all major projects.
• Track operational readiness requirements and handover obligations.
• Identify interface risks impacting successful project transition to operations.
• Support structured project-to-operations handover processes.

Project Integration, Governance and Assurance

• Establish fit-for-stage project governance standards, reporting frameworks and delivery disciplines.
• Implement consistent milestone tracking, look-ahead planning and escalation protocols.
• Maintain portfolio-level risk, action and decision registers.
• Support project assurance reviews and stage gate assessments.
• Ensure governance processes remain practical, scalable and aligned to business requirements.

Contractor and Interface Coordination

• Maintain visibility of contractor deliverables, owner obligations and key project interfaces.
• Identify unresolved dependencies and interface risks.
• Support coordination between contractors, consultants and owner teams.
• Monitor progress against key contractor milestones and commitments.
• Assist delivery leaders in understanding schedule and interface implications of contractor performance

Executive and Board Reporting

• Prepare integrated reporting covering project status, critical path performance, portfolio risks and delivery confidence.
• Provide concise, decision-focused reporting for Executive Committee and Board discussions.
• Maintain visibility of project trends, emerging issues and recovery actions.
• Ensure consistency of reporting across projects and workstreams.
• Support preparation of executive and Board presentations where required

Growth Project Integration

• Coordinate planning and integration activities across development studies and growth projects.
• Support technical and commercial stage-gate readiness processes.
• Maintain visibility of strategic project interdependencies across the growth portfolio.
• Support investment decision processes through integrated project analysis and reporting.
• Assist in establishing scalable project delivery capability aligned to Cyprium's growth strategy.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or related discipline.
• Experience in mining, processing, infrastructure or major capital project environments.
• Demonstrated experience in project planning, project controls, project engineering or project delivery roles.
• Experience managing complex project interfaces and dependencies.
• Strong understanding of project delivery lifecycles, commissioning and operational readiness.
• Experience preparing executive-level reporting and analysis.
• Experience in owner's team project environments.
• Experience supporting restart, expansion or brownfields development projects.
• Exposure to project scheduling software and project management systems.

Skills & Attributes

• Strong planning, integration and coordination capability.
• Structured and analytical thinker.
• Ability to translate complex project information into decision-ready insights.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills.
• High attention to detail while maintaining strategic perspective.
• Commercially aware and outcome focused.
• Effective communicator across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Able to operate effectively in a dynamic restart and growth environment.