Project Manager

Reporting to the Senior Manager, Major Projects, the Project Manager is responsible for overseeing and delivering the successful execution of projects that support innovation and growth within the marine sector at COVE. They will be responsible for project execution, contract administration, financial oversight, stakeholder coordination, and performance reporting to ensure project objectives are met in line with approved scope, schedule, budget, and funding requirements.

COVE facilitates the technical work on its projects through partners in its ecosystem. The Project Manager oversees that work through delivery, managing vendor relationships, contracts, and the regular reporting COVE’s clients and funders rely on.

What You’ll Do

• Lead and manage project activities from initiation through close-out, ensuring delivery within scope, schedule, budget, quality, and performance objectives and maintaining compliance with contractual, funding, and reporting requirements.
• Build and manage relationships with clients, funding organizations, partners, vendors, and internal stakeholders as the primary project contact while coordinating project activities and stakeholder communications throughout the project lifecycle.
• Identify project risks, dependencies, and issues, implementing mitigation strategies and escalating significant risks as appropriate including risks related to budget performance, contractual obligations, deliverables, and project schedules.
• Manage project scope, performance, schedule, budget, forecast, quality, and resource utilization against approved project baselines and prepare and present regular project status reports, recommendations, financial summaries, KPI updates, variance analyses, and performance updates to internal and external stakeholders.
• Maintain and monitor project plans, schedules, budgets, and resource requirements, implementing corrective actions where necessary to address variances, risks, and performance issues.
• Support project governance activities, including scope management, change control, decision tracking, reporting requirements, and project close-out.
• Contribute to the development of project proposals, funding applications, and project initiation activities to support business development and funding acquisition including schedule, budget, resource, and project execution inputs.
• Ensure adherence to COVE’s project management best practices, industry standards, contractual obligations, funding requirements, and all relevant regulations.
• Ensure compliance with COVE’s policies and procedures, including human resources, safety, and operational standards.
• Take on additional responsibilities as required to support the success and growth of COVE’s programs and strategic initiatives.
• Occasional travel as required.

What You Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Engineering, Project Management, or a related discipline. Candidates with an equivalent combination of education, professional training, certifications, and relevant experience may also be considered.
• 5+ years of experience managing and executing projects, including responsibility for project reporting, stakeholder management, budget oversight, contract administration, and project coordination.
• Strong organizational and time management skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Strong understanding of project management principles, methodologies, governance and best practices.
• Demonstrated experience with project budgeting, financial monitoring, forecasting, variance analysis, and resource allocation.
• Knowledge of project risk management and the ability to proactively identify, assess, communicate and mitigate risks.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with diverse stakeholders. Experience in stakeholder management and relationship building.
• Demonstrated experience working in a collaborative matrixed team environment.
• Comfort working in a fast-paced research and development environment where plans and priorities change often, with the flexibility to take on a wide range of work in a smaller organization.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, presentation and facilitation skills with the ability to communicate project performance, financial status, risks, and recommendations to stakeholders.
• Proficiency in project management tools and software, including advanced skills in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint for reporting, financial analysis, and performance tracking.
• Experience administering contracts, funding agreements, procurement activities, or other project-related commercial obligations.
• Experience preparing project reports, dashboards, KPIs, and performance metrics for internal and external stakeholders.
• Eligibility to obtain and maintain a Government of Canada security clearance is required.

Additional Assets

• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.
• Experience using project management and work management platforms such as Jira Work Management, Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, or similar tools.
• Experience with marine, ocean technology, research and development, innovation, or infrastructure-related programs.
• Experience with defence, marine, or complex technology projects.
• Experience working with government procurement, funding programs, standards, contractual requirements, or regulatory environments.

Benefits

• Opportunity to learn and make an impact by working for a dynamic, growing company on meaningful projects that find solutions to real-life problems.
• Comprehensive paid time off including vacation, personal sick time, and additional days for family illness or medical appointments.
• Hybrid work model with flexibility to work remotely 1 day/week.
• Team-wide bonding activities and casual work environment.
• Tech-focused office location, convenient via transit and bike paths.
• Employee wellbeing including full medical & dental benefits and a health spending account.
• Group RRSP matching program & Income Insurance Plans.
• Learning and growth opportunities.
• Employee referral program.
• Competitive salary.

Don’t meet every single requirement? At COVE, they are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you are excited about this role, but your past experience does not align with every single qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

We are committed to ensuring accommodations are made available to persons with disabilities during the recruitment, assessment and selection processes and will provide reasonable accommodation upon request.