Head of Engineering Programs

San Francisco, Houston

About the role

About Mariana Minerals

Mariana Minerals is a software-first, vertically integrated minerals company on a mission to supply the critical minerals powering modern energy, AI, and defense technologies. We’re reimagining the minerals supply chain by combining deep industry expertise with advanced software, automation, and data-driven decision-making.

Role Overview

We are hiring a Head of Engineering Programs to lead the planning, coordination, and execution of Mariana’s capital project programs from development through construction.

In this role, you will own the overall program—driving schedules, budgets, and execution across the full project lifecycle while managing the critical interfaces between process development, process engineering, detailed engineering, construction, business development, finance, and more. You will lead a team of Technical Program Managers who keep workstreams aligned, surface risks early, and ensure decisions move quickly across functions. You will also heavily support the development and deployment of Mariana’s capital-project operating system—the software tools that automate and standardize how we plan, track, and execute programs—and drive their adoption across every program. This is a high-leverage leadership role at the intersection of program management, engineering, and software, central to how Mariana scales project delivery.

What You’ll Do

  • Own end-to-end execution of Mariana’s capital project engineering, driving overall schedule, budget, and delivery from development through construction and handover to operations

  • Lead and grow a team of Technical Program Managers, setting priorities, standards, and ways of working across active programs

  • Manage coordination and interfaces across process development, process engineering, detailed engineering, construction, business development, finance, and other functions to keep programs aligned and decisions moving quickly

  • Own integrated program schedules and budgets, tracking critical path, interdependencies, and resource needs, and proactively surfacing and mitigating risks

  • Drive cross-functional execution planning, reviews, and reporting to give leadership clear visibility into program status, risks, and trade-offs

  • Support the development of Mariana’s capital-project operating-system software tools, partnering with software and engineering teams to define requirements and workflows

  • Drive deployment and adoption of these tools across all programs, ensuring teams use them consistently to plan, track, and execute work

  • Establish and standardize Mariana’s project development and execution strategies

  • Partner with finance and business development on capital allocation, project economics, and investment decisions, ensuring program plans align with company strategy

  • Continuously improve program-management processes, templates, and metrics to scale project delivery as the portfolio grow

 

What You’ll Bring

  • Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or a related technical field

  • 10+ years of experience leading program or project management for large, complex capital projects in mining, minerals processing, chemical, energy, or heavy-industrial environments

  • Experience defining, deploying, and driving adoption of project management or capital-project software tools and digital workflows

  • Excellent cross-functional communication and stakeholder management skills, with comfort operating in a fast-moving, first principles-driven environment

  • Experience supporting construction, commissioning, and field execution preferred

Our culture is built on four principles:

Everyone Gets Home Safe. We never put speed or cost ahead of people.

Extreme Ownership. We take full responsibility for outcomes, relentlessly driving toward solutions.

Engineer Out Requirements, then Automate. We simplify, optimize, and then automate for scale.

Share Your Legos. We collaborate openly, share knowledge, and empower each other to build bigger, better solutions.

Join us as we build the future of responsible mineral sourcing and supply!

About Mariana Minerals

Mariana Minerals is a software-first, vertically integrated minerals company focused on supplying the minerals critical to modern energy, AI, and defense technologies. It engineers, builds, and operates mines and refineries using its proprietary MarianaOS platform, which integrates capital project execution, refinery operations, and mine management into a single AI and machine learning stack. The company targets domestic U.S. critical mineral supply for sectors facing supply chain vulnerabilities, including copper and lithium.

Other roles at Mariana Minerals

Interested?

Let me introduce you to the founders.

Skip the process

Refer someone

Know someone great for this role?

Share your link. If they get hired through Standout, you get $3,000.

Job details

Location

San Francisco, Houston

Company

NameMariana Minerals
IndustryArtificial Intelligence (AI)
Team Size3

Funding

Total raised

$400M

Last stage

Series A

Investors

a16z

Founders

TC

Turner Caldwell

CEO & Co-Founder

LinkedIn
JL

Juan Lozano

Co-Founder & CTO

BT

Baker Tilney

Co-Founder & CFO

LinkedIn

What happens next.

No applications, no recruiter spam. Just the intro.

01

Confirm the fit

A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.

02

I pitch you to the company

I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.

03

A meeting lands on your calendar

If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.