Merck Posted October 14, 2026

Associate Director, Engineering - Control Leader

Elkton, Virginia, United States of America FULL_TIME
Manufacturing & CMC Associate Director
Notify me about similar jobs

Merck is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

Job Description

Area Control Leader, Global Engineering Solutions (Associate Director)

The Area Control Leader is a key position in the Global Estimating Solutions, Project Business Services (PBS) Organization.  This role has the mandate to provide effective and innovative cost and schedule solutions for our business partners to maximize their value and for our teams to ensure successful project execution.

The leader will need to bring energy, experience and innovation to carry out the following:

Ensure minimum essential planning/scheduling and controlling elements are in place for all projects in their assigned portfolio.

Support deployment of innovative methods and tools to improve project/portfolio performance  (Target Value Delivery, Last Planner ® Production Planning & Control, AI solutions).

Monitor leading indicators and trends to provide early warning of issues to project teams, the E&C Lead and Regional Directors

Collaborate with teams to solve problems before they become overruns or missed deadlines.

Focus on control and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities:

Establish and implement Project Control execution plans.

Develop, monitor and maintain overall Monthly Project Cost Reports including:  cost budgeting/forecasting/reporting, earned-value analysis, progress measurement/schedule status, change management, risk management, and early warning of issues.

Support implementation of Target Value Delivery.

Develop and maintain overall Project Spending Plans.

Interface with AE (Architect Engineer) & CM (Construction Management) Project Control personnel to ensure timely communication and support of project scheduling, control and reporting requirements.

Work with internal SMEs in estimating and strategic scheduling to support transition from planning to execution.

Schedule development, maintenance, analysis and reporting using the Critical Path Method (CPM) and the Last Planner® System.

Development and monitoring of project staffing plans for new projects and ongoing projects.

Implementation of Change Management and Risk Management processes.

Support of project financial close out requirements including asset definition and valuation.

Liaison with various groups outside the Engineering organization.

Required Education:

Bachelor of Science in Engineering or a relevant discipline.

Required Qualifications:

10+ years applicable Project Control related experience.

Strong leadership, interpersonal, and communication skills and willing to accept and drive change and innovation.

Working knowledge of project cost and financial management aspects within SAP system (or similar) software.

Working knowledge of scheduling and risk analysis software (e.g. Primavera P6, Primavera Risk Analysis, MS Project).

Ability to travel across the Americas up to 25% of their time.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience in Lean Project Delivery Methodologies (e.g. Target Value Delivery and Last Planner®).

Pharmaceutical experience, including facility qualification and validation.

Project Management, Construction Management and/or Estimating experience.

Knowledge of Capital Management processes.

Lean/Six Sigma experience.

Understanding of MS Power Applications and AI.

Required Skills:

Capital Planning, Capital Projects, Engineering Principle, Engineering Standards, Environmental Safety, Maintenance Supervision, Microsoft Project, Path Analysis, People Leadership, Primavera Risk Analysis, Project Budgeting, Project Delivery, Project Estimations, Project Facilitation, Project Implementations, Project Management Methodology (PMM), Project Planning, Project Progress Reporting, Project Resource Management, Project Tracking, Sterile Manufacturing, Strategic Thinking

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  As a federal contractor, we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.  For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws, visit:

EEOC Know Your Rights

EEOC GINA Supplement​

We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

Learn more about your rights, including under California, Colorado and other US State Acts

The primary location for this posting is:

USA - Virginia - Elkton

Where required by law, the compensation range for this role is provided below.

The salary range for the primary location of this role is:

$142,400.00 - $224,100.00

This range reflects the Company's reasonable expectation of the base salary applicable to this role at the time of posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs. The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits .

Additional location(s): Please note the salary range above applies to the Primary Location of the position. Where a role has other listed locations, different compensation guidelines may apply. You may find the salary ranges for additional locations below. If the salary range is not listed for the location you are applying to, our Talent Acquisition team will provide further information to you relevant to your location.

Additional location(s) Compensation Information:

San Francisco Residents Only:  We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only:  We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 

Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

Domestic

VISA Sponsorship:

No

Travel Requirements:

25%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

n/a

Job Posting End Date:

10/28/2026 *A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE  the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

Requisition ID:R422190

Job details

Seniority
Associate Director
Function
Manufacturing & CMC
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Elkton, Virginia, United States of America
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Manufacturing & CMC role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 916 comparable Associate Director Manufacturing & CMC roles across 108 biopharma companies.

916Comparable roles tracked
823Currently active
108Companies hiring similar roles
41Countries represented

Salary context

266 of 916 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject Not listed on this posting
Lowest disclosed · Senior Technician Calibration - Maintenance · Mylan Technologies, Inc. $37,000/yr – $80,000/yr
Highest disclosed · Regional Manager - Megasys · Merck KGaA $220,000/yr – $250,000/yr
Peer group range $58,500 – $235,000 (median $151,700)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 916 comparable roles

United States498
India80
Ireland39
Netherlands27
Switzerland26
China25

+ 35 more countries

Seniority mix

916 of 916 peers have a known seniority level

Senior429
Manager374
Associate Director113

Therapeutic area mix

12 of 916 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Vaccines & Infectious Disease5
Rare Disease3
Oncology2
Dermatology & Aesthetics1
Immunology1

Similar opportunities

The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.

60%similar
AbbVie North Chicago, IL Associate Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Gilead Sciences, Inc. Foster City, United States Associate Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Gilead Sciences, Inc. Foster City, United States Associate Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Amgen Inc. Remote, United States Associate Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Lilly Richmond, Virginia, United States of America Associate Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Lilly Lebanon, Indiana, United States of America Associate Director
Same function Same seniority Same country

Notify me about similar jobs

Get an email when we spot other openings like this one – same job function, comparable seniority, roles you'd actually want to see.

Or follow a whole field: get every new Manufacturing & CMC job in the United States, and choose locations and companies.

How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

60%
Associate Director, CMC Portfolio Management
AbbVie · North Chicago, IL · Associate Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Associate Director- Supply Chain Data Science
Amgen Inc. · Remote, United States · Associate Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Engineering Associate Director (AD) - Device Assembly
Lilly · Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, United States of America · Associate Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Associate Director, Maintenance (Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellow)
Merck · Wilmington, Delaware, United States · Associate Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.