Discover and apply for Manager, Mass Properties jobs, a critical leadership role within the aerospace, defense, and advanced transportation industries. This senior engineering management position is central to the design, performance, and safety of vehicles where weight and balance are paramount. Professionals in this field provide strategic and technical oversight for an organization's mass properties program, ensuring that complex systems like aircraft, spacecraft, or military vehicles meet stringent performance, regulatory, and economic targets. A Manager, Mass Properties typically leads a team of specialized engineers and analysts responsible for the precise management of weight, center of gravity, and mass moment of inertia throughout a product's entire lifecycle. Their core mission is to establish and enforce the processes, standards, and tools that govern how mass data is collected, analyzed, reported, and optimized. Common responsibilities include developing and owning the overarching mass properties program plan, maintaining a comprehensive and authoritative mass properties database, and overseeing the data maturity from initial estimates through to final measured values. They manage critical trade-offs between weight, performance, and cost, collaborating closely with cross-functional teams including design, structures, propulsion, and systems engineering to drive mass optimization initiatives. Furthermore, they are accountable for ensuring all mass properties documentation and reporting comply with relevant regulatory standards (such as FAA or EASA) and support certification activities. The typical skill set for these leadership jobs is both deep and broad. Candidates generally possess a bachelor's or advanced degree in Aerospace, Mechanical, or a related engineering discipline. They bring extensive hands-on experience (often 8+ years) in mass properties engineering, with a substantial portion in a leadership or technical management capacity on complex development programs. Essential skills include exceptional project and team management abilities, strong analytical and problem-solving prowess, and expertise in relevant software tools and database management. A successful manager must have a thorough understanding of the regulatory landscape, outstanding communication skills for interfacing with both engineering teams and executive leadership, and a proven track record in process improvement and risk management related to weight and balance. For engineers passionate about the intersection of technical precision, leadership, and vehicle performance, Manager, Mass Properties jobs offer a challenging and influential career path at the heart of innovative engineering projects.
