Operations Manager

About Unity Power Engineers

Unity Power Engineers is an established electrical and power engineering consultancy based in Newcastle NSW, with a team of nearly 30 engineers and technical professionals delivering high-voltage, substation, protection, renewable energy and industrial electrical engineering services to utility, renewable energy, mining and industrial clients. The firm has a strong project pipeline and is in a deliberate growth phase, investing in the systems, processes and leadership structure needed to scale while protecting the quality and technical reputation it is known for.

The two Directors are the owners of the business and its senior technical authority. As the firm grows and expands its team, they are building a leadership structure around them so they can focus on technical leadership, client relationships and strategy. The Operations Manager is the first and most important appointment in that plan.

Purpose of the role

The Operations Manager is a newly created senior role that will own resourcing, scheduling and the operational running of the practice — bringing structure and forward planning to how the firm deploys its people and delivers its projects. It is the firm’s first dedicated operations appointment, and it directly frees the Directors from day-to-day resourcing and administration so they can concentrate on engineering leadership and clients.

It is a hands-on, build-it role in a growing business: the successful candidate will put in place the resourcing, project-controls and systems the firm needs for its next stage, and will have a genuine opportunity to grow with it.

An early priority for this role will be to lead the rollout and embedding of new project-management and job-costing software across the business; selection is already underway.

The opportunity — a pathway to General Manager

This role is designed with a deliberate growth path.

Over the next few years, as Unity scales and the Directors progressively step back from the day-to-day running of the business, the Operations Manager may either progress into a General Manager role — with responsibility for running the business commercially and operationally — or continue to lead operations as part of an expanded leadership team reporting to a General Manager.

Which path applies will depend on the individual’s skills, experience and ambition, and on the firm’s rate of growth. We would be glad to hear both from candidates with the capability and appetite to grow into business leadership, and from those who want to be an outstanding Operations Manager for the long term.

Key responsibilities

Resourcing and capacity planning

•    Own the firm-wide resourcing schedule and forward capacity plan across all engineers, designers and projects.

•    Allocate people to projects, resolve competing demands, and manage utilisation to balance delivery and workload.

•    Anticipate and manage peaks in demand — including engaging, onboarding and coordinating contract and flex resources.

Project controls and reporting (PMO)

•    Establish and run practical project controls — budgets, programmes, progress tracking and work-in-progress reporting.

•    Give the Directors clear portfolio-level visibility of delivery status, capacity and financial performance.

•    Support Team Leads and project managers with tools, templates, reporting and consistent ways of working.

Systems, process and improvement

•    Improve and embed the business systems that support growth — job and project management, timesheets, resourcing and document control.

•    Drive consistency, efficiency and continuous improvement across the practice.

Commercial and operational

•    Work closely with finance on billing, WIP, forecasting and operational KPIs.

•    Provide the capacity assessment within the firm’s new-work qualification process — testing whether opportunities can be resourced before they are pursued.

•    Manage supplier, contractor and operational vendor arrangements.

•    Support the Directors on business planning and operational decision-making, taking on increasing responsibility over time.

People and ways of working

•    Partner with Team Leads on resourcing, workload and development planning.

•    Help embed the firm’s evolving organisational structure and operating rhythm.

Key relationships

Directors (reporting line); Team Leads and the engineering and design teams; finance; project managers; clients (operationally); and contractors, suppliers and recruiters.

Selection criteria

Essential

•    Proven operations, practice-management or project-controls experience in a professional-services, engineering or consulting environment.

•    Strong resourcing, scheduling and capacity-planning capability across a portfolio of concurrent projects.

•    A track record of implementing and improving business systems and processes.

•    Commercial acumen — a sound understanding of utilisation, work-in-progress and project financials.

•    Excellent organisation, prioritisation and stakeholder-management skills.

•    The maturity to operate with autonomy and a clear mandate within an owner-led business.

Desirable

•    Experience in an engineering consultancy (electrical or power ideal) or a comparable technical professional-services firm.

•    Familiarity with PMO / project-controls and job- or resource-management systems.

•    A tertiary qualification in business, engineering, project management or a related field; project-management credentials (e.g. PMP or PRINCE2) an advantage.

•    The ambition and potential to grow into a General Manager role.

Personal attributes

•    Calm and effective under pressure; comfortable in a fast-growing business.

•    Hands-on, pragmatic and delivery-focused, with strong judgement.

•    Collaborative and trusted — able to influence without heavy authority.

Measures of success — first 12 months

• A functioning firm-wide resourcing schedule and forward capacity view is in place and used.

• Project controls and reporting give the Directors clear, regular portfolio visibility.

• Key systems and processes are improved and embedded.

• Peak demand periods are resourced without failures in quality or delivery.

• The Directors are materially freed from resourcing and operational administration.

• New project-management and job-costing software successfully rolled out and embedded across the business