Senior Engineering & Integration Manager
About the company:
In the coming decades, our world needs substantially more critical minerals such as copper, lithium, and cobalt, to build electric infrastructure, vehicles, data centers, and electronics. The mining industry is making 10x fewer discoveries per dollar spent on exploration compared to 30 years ago, because the easy-to-find, near surface deposits have largely been discovered.
KoBold is a leading scientific mineral exploration, mine development, and technology development company. Our goal is to turn mineral exploration into a repeatable science to make discoveries faster—by integrating artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and new technology. We made our first discovery—Mingomba, one of the world’s largest undeveloped high-grade copper deposits—after spending materially less than the industry average. This asset is expected to operate for decades, and be a leading global copper supplier. KoBold is actively running exploration programs in 8 countries worldwide, all with the potential for another high-quality discovery.
We are developing Mingomba by applying the same technical rigor to resource development and mine planning as we do to exploration. Mingomba is also a scientific laboratory where we prototype new technology and workflows, combined with the expertise of veteran engineers. Our multidisciplinary team consists of mine and processing engineers, geologists, data scientists, software engineers, community, health & safety, construction, and operations specialists. We want to develop world-class mining projects that are safer and have more predictable outcomes for ourselves, partners, and communities.
KoBold is privately held; investors include institutional asset managers T. Rowe Price and Canada Pension Plan Investments; technology venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BOND Capital, Durable Capital, StepStone, and Standard Investments; and strategic natural resources companies BHP and Mitsubishi.
About the role
This is a senior Engineering leadership role for the development of a significant Copper mining complex in Zambia. The Mingomba deposit contains over 10 million tonnes of copper more than half of which exceeds 6% grade. This role will help turn that world class deposit into a world class mine.
The Senior Engineering & Integration Manager is the primary technical authority for the Mingomba copper project through its design and construction phase. Reporting to the Project Director, this role carries end-to-end accountability for the quality, integrity, and integration of all engineering across the owner's team, the EPCM and specialist contractors. The role is the technical decision-maker and design authority for the project, responsible for safeguarding Kobold’s interests through stage gates, design reviews, and construction handover to operations. The Senior Engineering & Integration Manager sets the direction for engineering delivery, resolves complex cross-discipline technical issues, and directly influences how the Mingomba project is designed and built.
What this role is accountable for delivering
This role exists to ensure against common failure modes on major capital projects, with particular emphasis on scope creep driven by unresolved technical decisions, design quality that does not survive construction, and an owner's team that cannot effectively challenge or govern its engineering service providers.
The successful candidate will be judged on:
- Engineering delivered on time, within sanction cost, and to the standard required for safe, operable, and maintainable facilities.
- A design that has been constructability-reviewed, value-engineered, and operability-tested before it is frozen.
- An EPCM that is technically directed, not just administered, with KoBold holding design authority.
- A project that passes independent technical assurance reviews and stage-gate approvals without material qualification.
- A technical risk register that is live, owned, and actively driven down.
Key responsibilities
Technical authority and design governance
- Hold and exercise design authority on behalf of KoBold. Making and recording binding technical decisions across all disciplines, with a clear escalation path to the Project Director for issues that affect schedule, cost, or safety.
- Establish the basis of design, engineering standards, and design criteria for the project, and enforce them with both the owner's team and the EPCM.
- Own the technical risk register: identify, quantify, and drive the resolution of engineering risks before they become scope changes or construction rework.
- Approve key engineering deliverables including P&IDs, design criteria, equipment datasheets, and technical specifications.
- Direct the scope freeze process: define what decisions must be made to freeze design at each stage, own the timeline for those decisions, and prevent scope growth after sanction.
EPCM direction and performance management
- Act as KoBolds senior technical interface to the EPCM as an active director of engineering scope, priorities, and performance.
- Monitor engineering service provider progress against the engineering management plan using earned value metrics and escalate deviations in quality, schedule, or cost before they compound.
- Direct EPCM and specialist contractor technical performance by challenging design solutions, enforcing design and lifecycle cost requirements, and proactively mitigating interface risks to ensure scope alignment.
Constructability, operability, and value engineering
- Lead formal constructability reviews at FEL 2 and FEL 3, ensuring construction knowledge is embedded in the design before it is frozen.
- Drive operability and maintainability reviews with the operations and maintenance readiness team at each design milestone, ensuring the facility can be safely operated and maintained as designed.
- Lead structured value engineering sessions; ensure cost optimisation decisions are evidence-based, preserve safety and operability margins, and are captured in the design basis.
- Benchmark key design parameters and cost drivers against comparable copper projects and IPA / industry data; identify outliers and resolve them with the EPCM and design leads.
Project integration and stage-gate delivery
- Own the engineering integration across all disciplines and resolve inter-discipline conflicts, managing shared interfaces, and ensuring the project design is coherent end-to-end.
- Prepare and present the engineering case for each stage-gate review; ensure the technical content is decision-ready, the assumptions are explicit, and the residual risks are quantified.
- Oversee and enforce the project change control process, ensuring EPCM compliance and managing the technical, cost, and schedule impacts of scope changes.
- Lead lessons-learned integration from comparable projects into the Mingomba design; establish a formal mechanism for capturing and applying lessons during execution.
- Direct engineering interface management with external stakeholders, regulators, power counterparties, infrastructure providers, and the Zambian technical authorities.
Process safety and hazard management
- Own the engineering dimension of process safety for the project and be accountable that HAZOPs, HAZIDs, SIL assessments, and process safety reviews are completed, actioned, and closed out.
- Act as design authority for safety-critical systems (including isolation philosophies, shutdown logic, and structural integrity), ensuring all decisions are documented, traceable, and preserved throughout project design and construction.
- Provide engineering input to the project's safety case and regulatory submissions; represent the KoBold engineering position in interactions with regulators.
Engineering data, quality, and handover
- Establish and oversee the engineering data management framework, including version control and handover protocols, while maintaining the deliverables register to ensure a current, complete, auditable technical record.
- Direct the engineering quality plan: define hold points, witness points, and independent review requirements across the design and construction phases.
- Implement KoBold engineering and business standards; provide technical governance through a structured review and audit programme across the owner's team and EPCM.
People, capability, and operational readiness
- Build and lead a high-performing KoBold engineering team, setting clear accountabilities, developing capability, and creating a culture of technical rigour and challenge.
- Define the engineering resourcing plan through each project phase; identify gaps and direct recruitment or secondment to fill them ahead of demand.
- Ensure the operational readiness team is embedded in the design process from the outset, and that design decisions reflect operability and maintenance requirements.
- Mentor senior engineers; establish a structured technical development pathway within the project organisation.
Qualifications and experience
- 18+ years of professional engineering experience in major capital projects in mining, minerals processing, oil and gas, or equivalent heavy industry, with a significant portion as the lead engineering authority on the owner's side.
- Demonstrated track record of delivering projects through full lifecycle from FEED to mechanical completion, including at least one project above $700M total capital cost.
- Deep experience managing and directing EPCM contractors with the ability to distinguish between EPCM advisory and owner technical authority, and to hold that line under schedule pressure.
- Strong multi-discipline technical foundation with the ability to assess and challenge designs across civil/structural, mechanical, process, electrical, and instrumentation disciplines. Experience with Mine Processing and Infrastructure is an advantage.
- Capability in constructability reviews, operability reviews, value engineering, and HAZOP/HAZID facilitation on complex facilities.
- Experience developing and executing engineering management plans, technical risk registers, design basis documents, and stage-gate technical submissions.
- Exposure to earned value management, engineering progress measurement, and performance reporting in an owner's team context.
- Strong communication and influencing skills: able to present technical positions to project leadership, boards, regulators, and external technical stakeholders with equal clarity.
- Bachelor's degree (or higher) in an engineering discipline; Chartered Engineer status or equivalent professional registration strongly preferred.
- Experience in African or similarly complex operating environments is an advantage
- Ability and willingness to travel internationally to Zambia, with anticipated travel of 90+ days per year.
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative-action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunities for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, or disability.
Location: Global with Africa or Europe (preferred) otherwise North America.