Job Title: Senior Project Engineer 

Reporting to: Senior Manager, Projects (Packaging) 

Location: Primary location: Auto Coding Solutions, Daresbury. Secondary locations: As required by the business 

Job Summary 

The Senior Project Engineer manages ACS customer projects from order handover through development, deployment, installation, commissioning, support transition and close-out. The role co-ordinates internal teams, customers and third parties to deliver projects safely, on time, to agreed scope, and with effective control of cost, risk, change and project information. 

The role also manages pre-order project review, bringing delivery, resource and risk considerations into business decision-making. The Senior Project Engineer builds strong customer relationships, provides clear project leadership and applies commercial judgement to manage change, protect project performance and support successful customer outcomes. 

Key Tasks and Accountabilities 

Project Management 

• Manage ACS customer projects from order handover through planning, delivery, go-live support and close-out. 

• Prepare and maintain project plans, milestones, resource requirements, customer actions and delivery dependencies as required. 

• Coordinate internal and external project teams, including third parties and customers. 

• Monitor progress against scope, cost and schedule, resolving issues and escalating risks where required. 

• Manage standard and complex projects using a level of control appropriate to project risk. 

• Maintain clear project records, decisions, actions and supporting information. 

Governance, Risk and Change Control 

• Manage pre-order governance, co-ordinating the required business inputs and recording decisions and actions. 

• Lead project governance following order, ensuring reviews take place at the required project stages. 

• Maintain visibility of project risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies and outstanding actions. 

• Assess and control changes affecting scope, cost, delivery dates, technical requirements, resources or customer commitments. 

• Ensure governance decisions, exceptions, actions, owners and due dates are recorded and followed up. 

• Escalate material risks, missing information or decisions outside agreed authority. 

Customer and Stakeholder Co-ordination 

• Act as the main project contact for the customer following order handover. 

• Coordinate customer information, site readiness, access, production downtime, training and acceptance requirements. 

• Provide clear project updates covering progress, decisions, risks, actions and changes. 

• Follow up actions and maintain information flow across internal teams and external stakeholders. 

• Manage customer expectations and escalate dependencies or blockers affecting delivery. 

Commercial Control and Close-Out 

• Monitor project hours, costs, site days, follow-up visits and commercial performance. 

• Maintain records of scope changes, variation requests and commercial impacts. 

• Coordinate customer acceptance and transition of the live system into Support. 

• Review project performance, including the reasons and costs of follow-up visits. 

• Complete project close-out and ensure remaining actions have clear ownership. 

• Hold project lessons-learned reviews and record findings in the central log. 

Job Requirements 

• Strong project management capability in a software, controls, automation, systems integration or technical project environment. 

• Strong planning, organisation, risk management and change-control skills. 

• Able to facilitate cross-functional decisions without assuming ownership of functional evidence or commercial approval. 

• Able to coordinate multiple teams and maintain progress without direct line authority. 

• Commercial awareness, including project cost, scope, resource and schedule impacts. 

• Confident communicating with customers and internal stakeholders. 

• Able to challenge unclear requirements, incomplete information and unrealistic delivery commitments. 

• Competent in Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word and wider Microsoft 365 applications. 

• Able to travel to customer sites when required. 

Experience 

• Previous project management experience is required. 

• Experience managing customer projects through planning, delivery, implementation and close-out is required. 

• Experience facilitating governance or cross-functional project reviews is desirable. 

• Experience of project governance, risk management, change control and cost tracking is desirable. 

• Experience in software, controls, automation, systems integration, engineering or manufacturing is desirable. 

• Experience in food production, packaging, coding, labelling or traceability systems is desirable.