Chief Engineer - US Naval

Job Title: Chief Engineer - US Naval

Working Pattern: Fulltime

Location: Indianapolis, IN

As Chief Engineer – Naval (US), you will be the formal Design Authority for a critical portfolio of defence products, overseeing technical excellence, innovation and safety. Reporting to the Director – ET&S Defence, this is an opportunity to drive real impact – shaping strategy, leading an organisation of around 40 skilled engineers, and delivering mission-critical solutions to our customers.

You work closely with senior stakeholders, regulators and customers, ensuring our products are safe, future-ready, and delivered on time and to budget. This is more than a technical role – it is a change to lead transformation and drive engineering performance. 

Why Rolls-Royce?

Rolls-Royce is one of the most enduring and iconic brands in the world and has been at the forefront of innovation for over a century. We design, build and service systems that provide critical power to customers where safety and reliability are paramount.

We are proud to be a force for progress, powering, protecting and connecting people everywhere.

We want to ensure that the excellence and ingenuity that has shaped our history continues into our future and we need people like you to come and join us on this journey.

Rolls-Royce has been recognized as the top employer in the Engineering & Manufacturing category on the prestigious Forbes Top Employers for Engineers list for 2025. This ranking highlights our commitment to innovation, employee development, and fostering a collaborative environment where engineers can thrive.

At Rolls-Royce, we are committed to creating a workplace where all employees feel respected, supported, and empowered to do their best work. We foster a welcoming and innovative work environment that invests in you, giving you access to an incredible breadth and depth of opportunities where you can grow your career and make a difference.

Rolls-Royce is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristics.

What you will be doing:

With this exciting opportunity you will be a professional, safety-focussed engineering leader with a proven track-record of robust technical leadership and engaging people management in high-performing teams. The role requires that you are open-minded and enthusiastic about change, will positively embrace challenge and are able to effectively collaborate across business boundaries; you will consistently demonstrate resilience in an ambiguous, in-service product focussed environment and will successfully lead by example.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead as the formal Design Authority for naval systems, owning the overarching product safety strategy, chairing the Product Safety Review Board, and ensuring full compliance with Product Safety and HSE policies.
• Inspire and manage a high-performing engineering team, aligning capability and resources to deliver technical excellence, while setting clear performance goals and maintaining a structure that supports delivery and development.
• Act as the key technical interface with internal and external customers, translating complex stakeholder requirements into clear engineering priorities that feed into divisional and group-level strategies.
• Drive the successful delivery of engineering programs, ensuring on-time, on-budget, first-time-right outputs while proactively managing technical risks and integrating plans into master schedules.
• Champion innovation and continuous improvement, promoting the adoption of new tools and methods to enhance delivery, improve efficiency and ensure compliance with standards in safety, cybersecurity, and IP.

Who we’re looking for:

A successful Chief Engineer you will be a professional, safety-focussed engineering leader with a proven track-record of robust technical leadership and engaging people management in high-performing teams. The role requires that you are open-minded and enthusiastic about change, will positively embrace challenge and are able to effectively collaborate across business boundaries; you will consistently demonstrate resilience in an ambiguous, in-service product focussed environment and will successfully lead by example.

At Rolls-Royce we put safety first, do the right thing, keep it simple and make a difference. These principles form the behaviours that guide us and are an essential component of our assessment process. They are the fundamental qualities that we seek for all roles.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and 8+ years of experience, or Master’s degree in Engineering and 6+ years of experience
• Up to date, relevant, engineering expertise
• Self-starter with an ability to deal with ambiguity
• Demonstrable engineering leadership of successfully delivered projects/tasks to time, cost, quality.
• Experience of collaboration with diverse teams from different cultures
• Knowledge of customer and government relations and/or experience of working in a partnership would be beneficial

What we offer:

We offer excellent development opportunities, a competitive salary, and exceptional benefits. These include bonus, employee support assistance and employee discounts.

Your needs are as unique as you are. Hybrid working is a way in which our people can balance their time between the office, home, or another remote location.  It’s a locally managed and flexed informal discretionary arrangement.  As a minimum we’re all expected to attend the workplace for collaboration and other specific reasons, on average three days per week.

Benefits

Rolls-Royce provides a comprehensive and competitive Total Rewards package that includes base pay and a discretionary bonus plan. Eligible employees may have the opportunity to enroll in other benefits, including health, dental, vision, disability, life and accidental death & dismemberment insurance; a flexible spending account; a health savings account; a 401(k) retirement savings plan with a company match; Employee Assistance Program; Paid Time Off; certain paid holidays; paid parental and family care leave; tuition reimbursement; and a long-term incentive plan. The options available to an employee may vary depending on eligibility factors such as date of hire, employment type, and the applicability of collective bargaining agreements.