Project manager Safety
seafarnv · Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium ·
- Work mode
- Hybrid
- Category
- Project management
seafarnv · Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgium ·
Seafar is an innovative technology and service provider for the maritime sector, founded in 2018. We offer a unique combination of hardware, software, and Remote Operations Centers (ROCs) that enable the remote operation of vessels, increasing safety, efficiency, and operational continuity in inland and coastal shipping.
Our mission? Clearing the path toward autonomous shipping — and we’re only just getting started. With a strong vision and international ambition, we’re growing fast. Are you ready to play a key role in this journey?
To support our expanding team, we’re looking for a Project manager Safety who will further shape and develop Seafar’s Safety strategy across all our operations.
About the role
As Project Manager Safety, you own Seafar's safety story end to end: you get our technology certified and approved, you make sure safety is designed into the product rather than bolted on afterwards, and you represent Seafar in the international conversation about how autonomous and remotely operated shipping should be regulated.
You are the bridge between three worlds, the regulators and class societies who decide what is permitted, the product and engineering teams who build what we ship, and the customers and crews who operate it every day. You translate between them, and you keep our internal quality and safety management system running underneath it all.
This is a hands-on project management role with a strong external profile. You will be in front of authorities and industry panels as often as you are in a sprint review.
What you'll do
Certification and approval of our technology
Own the roadmap for getting Seafar's hardware, software and ROC operations certified and approved — with classification societies, and industry stakeholders across our markets
Build and maintain the safety cases, technical files and evidence packages that support type approvals, class notations, permits and derogations
Act as Seafar's single point of contact towards class societies, industry stakeholders and regulators during approval processes, from first submission to final certificate
Track the approval status of every vessel, waterway and product configuration, and keep stakeholders informed on what is approved, what is pending and what is blocked
Anticipate certification requirements for products still in development, so approval is not the thing that delays a launch
Standards, regulation and industry dialogue
Keep Seafar aligned with the standards that matter to us — ISO 9001, ISO 45001, ISO 27001, TMSA, class rules and the evolving international and European frameworks for automated and remotely operated navigation
Monitor regulatory developments, assess what they mean for our product and operations, and turn them into concrete internal actions
Represent Seafar in working groups, standardisation bodies and expert panels where the rules for autonomous shipping are being written — and make sure our operational experience shapes them
Build and maintain strong working relationships with authorities, class societies, port and waterway administrations, insurers and industry associations
Working with the product team
Translate safety and certification requirements into clear, prioritised requirements for the product and engineering teams
Collect, structure and champion safety feature requests coming from operators, customers, incidents and regulators — and follow them through the roadmap until they ship
Run risk assessments (HAZID, HAZOP, FMEA) on new features, vessel integrations and operational concepts, and make sure the outcomes land in the backlog
Review and sign off on the safety-relevant aspects of releases, trials and new deployments
Make the safety perspective a normal, early part of product decisions rather than a late-stage gate
Promoting the safety case for remote and autonomous navigation
Actively promote the safety advantages of Seafar's technology — with data, not slogans — towards customers, regulators, crews and the wider industry
Speak at and contribute to international safety conferences, technical seminars and customer events
Develop the supporting material: safety performance reporting, white papers, position papers, case studies and technical arguments
Support commercial and regulatory conversations where a credible, well-evidenced safety story is the deciding factor
Incidents, investigation and mitigation
Lead the follow-up of incidents and near-misses together with customers, crews and remote operators
Run structured root cause analysis (5-Why, flow process analysis, and comparable methods) and produce clear, honest investigation reports
Define, agree and track mitigation measures — technical, procedural and organisational — through to verified closure
Feed every lesson learned back into the product, the procedures and the training programmes
Maintain and report on safety KPIs, trends and recurring themes across the fleet
Training and safety culture
Develop and continuously improve training programmes for remote operators, onboard crews and customer organisations
Build the training material that supports safe adoption of new features and new vessel types
Deliver internal QHSE awareness training and act as an approachable, credible reference point for safety questions across the company
Act as Prevention Advisor and drive a safety culture where reporting is normal and speaking up is rewarded
Quality and safety management system
Own, develop and maintain Seafar's QHSE policies, procedures and management system, and keep it genuinely useful rather than shelf-ware
Plan and conduct internal audits, and lead Seafar through external audits and certification reviews
Identify non-conformities, agree corrective actions and follow them to closure
Align our management system with those of our clients where our operations meet theirs
Must have
Demonstrable experience taking a product, system or operation through a certification or regulatory approval process — with a classification society, flag state or national authority
Solid project management skills: you can run several parallel approval and improvement tracks, each with its own stakeholders and deadlines, without losing the thread
Experience with risk assessment and incident investigation methodologies (HAZID, HAZOP, FMEA, root cause analysis)
Strong communication skills — you are as comfortable presenting to a regulator or a conference audience as you are in a technical discussion with engineers
Excellent written English and Dutch; additional European languages are a strong plus
Nice to have
Experience with autonomous, remotely operated or highly automated systems: shipping, rail, automotive or aviation
An existing network within maritime, inland, industrial regulatory bodies, class societies or industry associations
Experience working with software product teams in an agile setting
How you work
You are comfortable operating where the rulebook is still being written, and you help write it
You are evidence-driven, you build arguments on data and documentation, and you say so when the data isn't there yet
You can hold your ground with a regulator and stay constructive with a customer after a bad day
You work independently, and you make multidisciplinary teams work together
What we offer
A role with genuine influence on how autonomous and remotely operated shipping is regulated in Europe: your work shapes the industry, not just the company
A seat at the table with the product team, the operations team and the leadership team
A fast-moving scale-up environment with the technical depth of a serious engineering company
International exposure: conferences, working groups, customer sites and Remote Operation Centres across Europe