Director, Facilities & Engineering

Director, Facilities & Engineering

At Vericel Corporation, we are pioneers in advanced cell therapies for sports medicine and severe burn care, transforming patient lives through cutting-edge regenerative medicine. Our commitment to innovation, patient-centered focus, and scientific excellence drives us to develop groundbreaking treatments including MACI (knee cartilage repair), Epicel and Nexobrid (burn care).

The Director, Facilities & Engineering provides site leadership for facilities, utilities, manufacturing equipment, process instrumentation, and engineering services supporting a regulated biotechnology manufacturing environment. The role is accountable for safe, compliant, reliable, and cost-effective operation of site assets across their lifecycle, including design, startup, commissioning, qualification support, maintenance, troubleshooting, optimization, upgrades, and retirement. The Director leads the Facilities & Engineering organization, sets maintenance and reliability strategy, manages departmental resources and budgets, and partners cross-functionally to support production, quality, compliance, and business objectives.

Schedule:

This position is onsite Monday - Friday, primarily at our Cambridge, MA office. Some time will also be required in our Burlington, MA office as well.

Leadership & Organization

• Lead, develop, and retain a high-performing Facilities & Engineering team; establish clear accountabilities, goals, succession plans, and development priorities.
• Provide coaching, performance feedback, recognition, and corrective action as appropriate, and ensure managers effectively carry people-leadership responsibilities through the organization.
• Establish departmental priorities, resource plans, training plans, and performance metrics aligned with site and company objectives.
• Promote a culture of safety, quality, compliance, collaboration, ownership, and continuous improvement.

Facilities, Engineering & Reliability

• Own the site strategy for facilities, critical utilities, manufacturing equipment, process instruments, building infrastructure, and associated lifecycle support.
• Ensure robust preventive and corrective maintenance programs, asset reliability practices, spare-parts strategy, and effective use of the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS).
• Partner with Manufacturing and other stakeholders to plan maintenance windows, shutdowns, emergency work, and resource allocation while minimizing operational disruption.
• Oversee troubleshooting, root-cause resolution, equipment and facility upgrades, and continuous-improvement initiatives that improve reliability, capacity, compliance, and total cost of ownership.
• Ensure appropriate prioritization and execution of scheduled work orders and emergency work requests in a 24/7 biotechnology manufacturing environment.

Capital Projects & Technical Execution

• Provide leadership and governance for Facilities & Engineering projects from concept through design, construction, startup, commissioning, qualification support, turnover, and closeout.
• Ensure projects are appropriately scoped, resourced, risk-managed, and delivered to approved safety, quality, schedule, and budget expectations.
• Manage engineering consultants, contractors, service providers, and vendors; establish clear performance expectations and ensure effective coordination during shutdowns and project execution.
• Design and implement facility and equipment improvements that support corporate objectives, production targets, future capacity, and lifecycle needs.

Compliance & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Ensure Facilities & Engineering activities are performed in accordance with cGMP, applicable FDA and other regulatory requirements, company quality systems, and approved procedures.
• Represent Facilities & Engineering during regulatory inspections, customer audits, internal audits, and compliance reviews; own or support timely resolution of observations and commitments.
• Partner closely with Manufacturing, Quality Assurance, Validation, Metrology, Scientific/Technical groups, and other support functions to coordinate work and resolve site issues.
• Ensure accurate, complete, and timely maintenance and engineering documentation, including cGMP record review and controlled permits/forms as applicable.
• Identify, address, and appropriately escalate site compliance, reliability, capacity, and infrastructure risks.

Financial & Business Management

• Develop and manage the departmental operating budget and headcount plan; provide input to broader site and organizational planning.
• Develop business cases and recommendations for maintenance, reliability, infrastructure, and capital investments based on risk, compliance, capacity, lifecycle, and business impact.
• Use department and site metrics to monitor performance, communicate progress, identify trends, and drive corrective actions.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Facilities Engineering, or a related…