Engineering Group Manager

Position Summary

The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is located on Mt. Graham in south eastern Arizona, and is part of the Mount Graham International Observatory. LBT has the largest total collecting area of any Optical/IR telescope. With its two 8.4m mirrors on a common mount that can be combined to form an interferometer with a baseline of 23m, complemented with adaptive secondary mirrors, the LBT provides unprecedented ground-based resolution at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths.

 LBT is a private telescope operated by an international consortium of institutions from Germany, Italy and the United States – including the University of Arizona.

With a suite of state of the art instruments, the observatory is moving to full operation while adding new capabilities such as laser-based ground-layer Adaptive Optics (AO) and new AO-fed instruments.

The Engineering Group, with around ten engineers and technicians, is responsible for the technical (mechanical, electrical, optical) support of the telescope and its instrumentation (including AO systems), in close collaboration with the Software and Science Groups (all based in Tucson), and the Mountain Operations Group, based in Safford and working on Mt Graham (3200m).

The Engineering Group, Head reports directly to the Director, and is a key participant in the management of the observatory as a member of the Observatory Council.

Duties & Responsibilities

Take over technical and administrative leadership of the Engineering Group, focusing on fostering teamwork, communications, mutual trust and respect as well as setting expectations and goals, establishing good practices, and finding meaningful work for each member of the Group Develop and maintain efficient contacts with the other Groups and the external teams contributing to the development of the observatory.

Provide oversight and technical direction for the telescope system lifecycle to include sustaining engineering, system upgrades/design/development/test and instrument integration.

Plan, organize, and help lead technical reviews; evaluate the work of engineering staff; provide policy guidance to engineering staff; coordinate engineering initiatives; monitor day-to-day operation; provide suggestions for all major technical decisions; and represent Engineering at the Observatory Council.