Senior Engineer, Planning & Strategic Projects

About the role

First Quantum is hiring a Senior Mine Engineer for its Planning & Strategy function at Trident, covering the planning cycle from Life of Mine down to the 3-24 month horizon. The role develops mine plans, schedules and value studies that link the Life of Mine strategy to safe, value-maximising production, and drives business improvement and value engineering. Appointees sit in either Medium-Term Planning or Strategic Mine Planning depending on experience and business need.

Key responsibilities

• Develop mine designs, sequences and schedules that are safe and aligned with production, equipment, infrastructure and cost targets, and evaluate alternative mining scenarios.
• Complete truck and loading fleet requirements, haul profiles, cycle times, utilisation and productivity assessments, and coordinate planning assumptions with Geology, Geotechnical, Hydrogeology and Drill & Blast.
• Monitor performance against plan, reconcile material deviations and conduct root-cause analysis, and carry out regular field inspections.
• Provide mine planning inputs to annual budgets, forecasts, business plans and cost models, and support finance and technical teams with financial modelling.
• Report priorities, risks and findings to Operations, Technical Services and senior leadership, and prepare technical reports, investment proposals and board-level presentations.
• Mentor Mine Engineers and junior planners, promote consistent engineering standards and ensure plans meet safety, statutory and site requirements.
• In the Medium-Term Planning focus area: develop rolling 3-24 month plans, stage plans and equipment deployment strategies, and turn them into weekly and monthly execution plans.
• In the Strategic Mine Planning focus area: support Life of Mine studies, scenario analysis and economic evaluations, and optimise pit designs, haulage and equipment for NPV maximisation.
• Lead or support Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen or Theory of Constraints initiatives, value engineering and KPI tracking for improvement projects.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering or equivalent recognised mining qualification; post-graduate qualifications in Business, Finance or Project Management are advantageous.
• 8+ years of open-pit mining experience, with significant mine planning experience in a large-scale operation; hard-rock/base metals experience is advantageous.
• At least 3 years in a medium-term planning, strategic planning or business improvement role.
• Experience translating strategic plans into executable schedules and/or evaluating long-term plans and business cases.
• Previous mentoring or technical leadership of other engineers preferred.

Required skills

• Proficiency in mine planning software such as Deswik, RPMGlobal, Surpac or Whittle, and strong Excel-based modelling.
• Understanding of open-pit mining methods, production scheduling, fleet requirements and haulage.
• Financial literacy (NPV, IRR, cost modelling, cost-per-tonne benchmarking).
• Ability to extract and interpret data from fleet management systems (e.g. Modular, Hexagon, Pitram).
• Continuous improvement tools (Lean, Six Sigma, 5 Whys, Fishbone, Pareto) preferred.