SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Mariana Minerals is a software-first, vertically integrated minerals company supplying critical minerals for modern energy, AI, and defense technologies. The company reimagines the minerals supply chain by combining deep industry expertise with advanced software, automation, and data-driven decision-making.
The Special Projects team solves the company's most critical and least-defined problems—high-leverage, ambiguous challenges that fall between organizational structures or have proven intractable within existing teams. This is a high-agency, low-ego problem-solving unit empowered by leadership to embed quickly, decompose problems using first-principles thinking, lead cross-functional execution, and iterate rapidly toward solutions.
In this role, you will:
- Own critical, ambiguous problems end-to-end, taking on discrete challenges with diverse stakeholders and driving to defined outcomes with high visibility.
- Build and lead teams you won't manage: assemble the right people across the company for each project, set pace, and bring them along. Success does not depend on org-chart authority.
- Build systems that outlast the project: deliver iterative working solutions while creating processes for sustained success. This is a hands-on builder role.
- Communicate relentlessly and plainly up and down the chain, setting strategic direction and building consensus.
- Execute with judgment, making real decisions in leadership's absence consistent with company strategy, and identifying/scoping special projects for the team.
Problem spaces include engineering, operations, software development, new project development, finance, brand, and more. You will travel to mines and refineries in Moab, UT; East Texas; and potential international operations (25–50% travel, subject to change).
The company culture is built on four principles: Everyone Gets Home Safe (never putting speed or cost ahead of people); Extreme Ownership (taking full responsibility for outcomes); Engineer Out Requirements, then Automate (simplifying, optimizing, then automating for scale); and Share Your Legos (collaborating openly and empowering each other).
QUALIFICATIONS:
- 5+ years in roles demanding ownership of undefined problems: engineering, operations, consulting, banking, construction, founder or early-employee at a startup, military service, or comparable. Preference for high-growth startup experience.
- Demonstrated ability to deliver results through people who do not report to you.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication.
- Willingness to engage seriously with both technical and commercial material (mining/process engineering, construction, contract structure, financial modeling, software, robotics, autonomy architecture). Depth in any one area is a plus; genuine interest in all is required.
- Willingness to travel to mines and refineries (25–50%, subject to change).
- No mining experience required, but industrial, technology, construction, aerospace, and/or manufacturing experience is a plus.
Desired traits: high agency and bias for action; low ego; high emotional intelligence; magnetic presence; curiosity across domains; comfort with ambiguity; directness; composure under pressure; quick learning in unfamiliar technical/commercial domains; grit.
