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About us
Get on board with Damen Naval, along with more than 1,200 professionals based in The Netherlands, Romania, and Germany. We are the naval division of the family-owned Damen Shipyards Group which employs 12,000 professionals globally. Damen Naval designs and builds advanced naval vessels for customers all over the world. With a passion for technological innovation and sustainable solutions, we continue to push the boundaries in naval shipbuilding. You can be part of our team! Are you ready for duty?

The role

Damen Naval is looking for a highly skilled Lead Technical Specialist in Welding, Coatings, and Adhesives to join our expert team. With a recognized international reputation in your field, you will lead and coordinate a small team of technology specialists, ensuring top-notch performance during Factory Acceptance Tests (FAT), Harbor Acceptance Tests (HAT), and Sea Acceptance Tests (SAT). You will drive development, provide expert advice, and engineer innovative solutions from the proposal phase through to the warranty period. Part of your potential job is also to ensure connection with production facilities and acting as the welding coordinator of the Damen Naval shipyard at Vlissingen Oost.

Key accountabilities
As Lead Technical Specialist Welding, Coatings, and Adhesives your key responsibilities will include:

• Lead, coordinate, and prioritize projects for a small team of specialists throughout the research, design, proposal, engineering, production, and warranty phases of shipbuilding projects.
• Implement creative solutions for complex multidisciplinary projects, ensuring adherence to schedules, quality, and budget.
• Support verification and validation tests during production, warranty periods, or as part of research projects.
• Initiate and support the development of innovative solutions in welding, coatings, and adhesives to meet future requirements.
• Advise on project activity lists and allocate manhour budgets effectively.
• Develop and review functional descriptions, calculations, simulations, technical specifications, and test and validation protocols.
• Support design reviews and contribute to the continuous improvement of departmental processes and tools.
• Promote knowledge development, transfer, and retention within the department.

Skills & experience
To excel as Lead Technical Specialist Welding, Coatings, and Adhesives you should possess the following qualifications and qualities:

• Bachelor or Master degree in a relevant technical field with at least eight years of experience.
• Certification as an International Welding Engineer (IWE) or International Welding Technologist (IWT) with at least eight years of relevant experience.
• NACE (National Association of Corrosion Engineers) or Frosio diploma preferred.
• Extensive theoretical knowledge of ship production welding, coating-related processes, metallic materials, and corrosion.
• Strong ability to maintain a broad network internally and externally.
• Proven experience in relevant fields, ideally within complex naval projects and in collaboration with research institutes, universities, vendors, and subcontractors.
• Good command of the Dutch and English language both written and verbal.
• Excellent references antecedents as a pre-employment security screening is standard part of the recruitment procedure.
• Permanent EU citizenship and passport are both required. Candidates with EU (work) visa or with both an EU and non-EU nationality and/or passport are not eligible in accordance with the requirements imposed by the military nature of our projects.

What we offer
At Damen Naval, we highly value our employees, and we will support your professional and personal development. We also provide our employees with:

• A competitive salary and 8% holiday pay.
• 27 holidays and 13 ADV days.
• Travel allowance of 23 cents per kilometre.
• PME-pension arrangement with an employer contribution of 60%.
• Profit sharing based on company results.
• Working from home policy and other benefits including a bicycle plan and company fitness.

Other
Are you interested in the position of Lead Technical Specialist Welding, Coatings, and Adhesives at Damen Naval, kindly submit your application along with your CV and motivation letter, along with an indication of:

• Your (preferred) monthly gross salary based on fulltime work.
• Availability (fulltime / part-time / number of hours).
• Notice period / possible starting date.

For more information about the vacancy or Damen Naval, please visit the Damen Naval website, the Damen Naval Career website or contact the Corporate Recruitment department via [email protected].

Please note that due to the military nature of our projects, only candidates who have permanent EU nationality can be considered for vacancies at Damen Naval. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to process candidates who (also) have a non-EU passport or nationality. A pre-employment and security screening and investigation form part of the recruitment process.

Damen Naval does not approve commercial, contractor and/or agency or other commercial use of this advertisement. Proposing candidates without invitation is not appreciated and they will not be considered. #LI-DNS1