{"id":3609711,"url":"https://alion.io/job/first-quantum-minerals-senior-engineer-planning-strategic-projects","title":"Senior Engineer, Planning & Strategic Projects","company":{"id":2016245,"name":"First Quantum Minerals","domain":"first-quantum.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/first-quantum","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"C","score":68,"open_postings":72,"ghost_share":0.528,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":33,"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Kalumbila, Zambia"],"countries":["ZM"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Microsoft Excel","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-02T13:32:23Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-02","last_verified_at":"2026-11-05T15:33:19Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":3,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":2},"description":"At First Quantum, we free the talent of our people by taking a very different approach which is underpinned by a very different, very definite culture - the “First Quantum Way”.\nWorking with us is not like working anywhere else, which is why we recruit people who will take a bolder, smarter approach to spot opportunities, solve problems and deliver results.\nOur culture is all about encouraging you to think independently and to challenge convention to deliver the best result. That’s how we continue to achieve extraordinary things in extraordinary locations.\nJob description:\nPurpose of the role\nThe Senior Mine Engineer - Mine Planning & Strategy develops the mine plans, schedules and value studies that link the Life of Mine strategy to safe, achievable and value-maximising production at Trident. The role spans the planning cycle from Life of Mine through to the 3-24 month horizon, and drives business improvement and value engineering initiatives across the operation.\nAll appointees share a common set of core responsibilities and are placed in one of two focus areas: Medium-Term Planning, or Strategic Mine Planning. Placement depends on experience and business need and may change over time. The role works closely with Mine Operations, Short-Term Planning, Geology, Geotechnical, Hydrogeology, Drill & Blast, Maintenance, Finance and Sustainability.\nJob & Candidate Requirements\nKey Responsibilities - Core (all focus areas):\nMine Planning & Optimisation\nDevelop mine designs, sequences and schedules that are safe, technically sound and aligned with production, equipment, infrastructure and cost targets.\nEvaluate alternative mining sequences and scenarios, and recommend the option with the best balance of value, risk and practicality.\nComplete truck and loading fleet requirements, haul profile, cycle time, utilisation and productivity assessments.\nCoordinate planning assumptions with Geology, Geotechnical, Hydrogeology and Drill & Blast teams, and integrate updated resource models.\nMonitor performance against plan, undertake reconciliation and root-cause analysis of material deviations, and recommend practical changes.\nConduct regular field inspections to validate planning assumptions and understand operational constraints.\nTechnical & Financial Support\nProvide mine planning inputs into annual budgets, forecasts, business plans and mining cost models.\nDevelop and maintain equipment, productivity, material movement and cost assumptions.\nInterface with Finance and technical teams to support decision-making through financial modelling.\nMaintain accurate planning data, assumptions, designs and supporting documentation.\n\nStakeholder Engagement & Reporting\nCommunicate priorities, constraints, risks, project findings and improvement outcomes to Operations, Technical Services and senior leadership.\nPrepare technical reports, investment proposals and senior leadership or board-level presentations.\n Collaborate with external consultants and internal stakeholders on studies, feasibility work and audits.\nLeadership & Capability Development\nProvide technical guidance and mentoring to Mine Engineers and junior planning personnel, and review their work.\nPromote consistent engineering and planning standards and strong collaboration between planning and operations.\nSafety & Risk\nEnsure mine plans incorporate geotechnical, operational and safety requirements, with planning-related risks identified and mitigated.\nEnsure designs and plans comply with site standards, statutory requirements and accepted mining engineering practice.\nKey Responsibilities - Focus Area (placement dependent):\nMedium-Term Planning (3-24 month horizon)\nDevelop and maintain rolling medium-term mine plans that translate the Life of Mine and annual plans into detailed, executable schedules.\nDevelop stage plans, bench progression and practical equipment deployment strategies.\nBalance ore delivery, waste movement and stripping while maintaining ore exposure, mining flexibility and future access.\nIdentify constraints and bottlenecks early enough to allow corrective action.\nSupport waste dump, stockpile, haul road and other mine infrastructure plans.\nWork with Short-Term Planning and Mine Operations to convert medium-term plans into weekly and monthly execution plans, and ensure future areas are ready for access, drilling, dewatering and infrastructure.\nStrategic Mine Planning (annual to Life of Mine)\nDevelop and evaluate long-term mine plans aligned with corporate strategy and resource optimisation.\nSupport or lead Life of Mine studies, scenario analysis and economic evaluations.\nOptimise pit designs, haulage systems, equipment selection and scheduling for NPV maximisation.\nConduct risk and sensitivity analysis for major capital investment decisions.\nBusiness Improvement & Value Engineering\nIdentify operational inefficiencies and improvement opportunities across mining, processing and supply chain.\nLead or support Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen or Theory of Constraints initiatives to improve productivity and reduce costs.\nApply value engineering techniques to assess alternatives in mine design, processing routes and capital projects.\nFacilitate cross-functional value driver workshops and cost-benefit analyses.\nDesign and track KPIs to measure the impact of improvement projects, and support site teams with change management to sustain improvements.\nQualifications Required:\n Bachelor’s degree in Mining Engineering or equivalent recognised mining qualification.\n Post-graduate qualifications in Business, Finance or Project Management advantageous.\nExperience & Skills Required:\n8+ years’ open-pit mining experience, with significant experience in mine planning.\nAt least 3 years in a medium-term planning, strategic planning or business improvement role.\nStrong practical experience in mine planning and scheduling within a large-scale open-pit operation; hard-rock/base metals experience advantageous.\nExperience translating strategic mine plans into executable schedules, and/or evaluating long-term plans and business cases.\nProficient in mine planning software (e.g. Deswik, RPMGlobal, Surpac, Whittle) and strong Excel-based modelling and data analysis.\nStrong understanding of open-pit mining methods, production scheduling, fleet requirements, haulage and mine infrastructure.\nStrong financial literacy (NPV, IRR, cost modelling, cost-per-tonne benchmarking).\nAbility to extract and interpret data from fleet management systems (e.g. Modular, Hexagon, Pitram).\nExperience with continuous improvement and root-cause tools (Lean, Six Sigma, 5 Whys, Fishbone, Pareto) preferred.\nPrevious experience mentoring or providing technical leadership to other engineers preferred.\nKey Competencies Required:\nStrong operational and practical mindset, with high analytical and problem-solving ability.\nAble to identify future constraints before they affect production and to evaluate trade-offs across options.\nEnd-to-end value chain understanding, from resource to ROM to plant and product.\nHigh attention to detail without losing sight of the broader mine plan, value and outcomes.\nExcellent communication, stakeholder engagement and influencing ability across Operations, Technical Services, Finance and senior leadership.\nProject management and change leadership; comfortable leading workshops and challenging assumptions.\nAble to work effectively in a multicultural, site-based mining environment, with strong coaching and knowledge-transfer capability.\nVisit our website and register for instant job alerts at First Quantum Careers\nFollow us for the latest news at LinkedIn\nIf you are already a First Quantum employee, log into your Workday account > Career Hub > Browse Jobs to apply internally for this opportunity.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7751,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Mining","Non-ferrous Metals"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-02T13:32:23Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":63,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.632,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":33,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/first-quantum-minerals-senior-engineer-planning-strategic-projects","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/first-quantum-minerals-senior-engineer-planning-strategic-projects.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-05T17:05:54Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":22448,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-06T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":2016245},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=2016245"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Ffirst-quantum-minerals-senior-engineer-planning-strategic-projects"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Ffirst-quantum-minerals-senior-engineer-planning-strategic-projects"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Ffirst-quantum-minerals-senior-engineer-planning-strategic-projects"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/first-quantum-minerals-senior-engineer-planning-strategic-projects\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Ffirst-quantum-minerals-senior-engineer-planning-strategic-projects"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3609711}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"first-quantum.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3609711},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); 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