Principal Technical Lead, SGT-A05 KB

A Snapshot of Your Day

As Principal Technical Lead for the SGT-A05 KB7X development program, your day centers on guiding the technical direction of a clean‑sheet aeroderivative engine at a critical point in its development lifecycle. You will lead engine level decision making, balancing performance, durability, operability, risk, cost, and schedule, while ensuring technical coherence across the full system.

Your time will be split between deep technical engagement and leadership activities. This includes reviewing and approving analyses and designs, resolving high‑risk issues, defining analytical methods and design criteria, and leading cross‑functional technical forums. You will work closely with a core team of roughly two dozen full‑time engineers while influencing a broader, globally distributed engineering community spanning multiple sites, disciplines, and partner organizations.

As a principal authority on the program, you will help translate business objectives into executable technical strategies and ensure the engine architecture supports both near‑term delivery goals and long‑term product line competitiveness. You will engage suppliers, manufacturing, and test organizations as needed, and you will play a central role as the program approaches First Engine to Test and subsequent development milestones to meet long‑term portfolio objectives.

• Serve as the principal system‑level technical authority for the SGT A05 KB7X development program, with formal approval responsibility for key engine‑level technical decisions.
• Define and own the engine architecture, design philosophy, analytical methods, and technical risk from concept through First Engine to Test and early development testing.
• Lead and integrate multidisciplinary engineering teams spanning design, performance, aerodynamics, structures, thermal and secondary flow, rotor dynamics, manufacturing, assembly, instrumentation, test, validation, and field management.
• Identify, frame, and resolve high‑risk technical challenges using first‑principles reasoning, targeted analysis, and disciplined trade studies.
• Ensure technical decisions align with broader business objectives including cost targets, product differentiation, producibility, and long‑term portfolio strategy.
• Provide technical direction, review, and approval of critical engineering analyses and design deliverables, ensuring readiness for build, test, and program milestones.
• Play an active role in First Engine to Test (FETT) planning and execution by validating margins, assumptions, and system interactions prior to test.
• Mentor early and mid‑career engineers by setting expectations for technical rigor, accountability, and clear decision making.
• Serve as a highly credible technical voice to program leadership and stakeholders, capable of explaining complex issues, framing tradeoffs, and driving alignment.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a closely related engineering discipline.
• Extensive professional experience, ideally 10 or more years, in gas turbine or turbo machinery system design and development.
• Demonstrated effectiveness operating at a principal level, providing engine‑level technical leadership and accountability on complex development programs.
• Broad exposure to a wide range of gas turbine architectures, including aero engines, aeroderivative industrial turbines, and heavy industrial gas turbines, across multiple thrust and power classes.
• Deep systems‑level expertise encompassing engine architecture, mechanical integrity, structural analysis, thermal and secondary flow, and rotor dynamics.
• Strong record of applying physics‑based, first‑principles reasoning to simplify ambiguity and enable timely, high‑quality technical decisions.
• Experience exercising formal technical approval authority with responsibility for system‑level outcomes and risk.
• Ability to influence, align, and lead large multidisciplinary teams across organizational and geographic boundaries without reliance on reporting structure.
• Working knowledge of manufacturing, assembly, instrumentation, and test disciplines and the practical…