Estimator & Proposals Coordinator

Thrust Maritime builds the equipment that goes over the side of offshore vessels and into the water.

Launch and recovery systems, subsea handling equipment and bespoke engineered solutions that have to work the first time, in environments that don't forgive mistakes.

Among our recent work is a launch and recovery system built for a major European Navy to support the rescue of submariners.

Our clients include major oil and gas operators, marine vessel owners, subsea contractors and defence organisations globally. We hold our own IP, deliver systems certified by Lloyd's Register, DNV and ABS, and do it with a small, highly capable engineering and manufacturing team in Dandenong South.

We're now looking for an Estimator & Proposals Coordinator to strengthen the link between the solutions we develop and the work we deliver.

The Role

At Thrust Maritime, much of our work starts with a technical problem.

Our engineers and technical team work with clients to understand that problem and develop a solution.

Your job is to take that solution and turn it into a well-founded quote, something we can sell and deliver.

You'll coordinate the estimating and proposal process, bringing together engineering hours, fabrication labour, materials, testing, certification, freight and other requirements into a complete and commercially sound proposal.

But this isn't a role for someone who simply takes the information they're given and puts it into a quotation template.

We want someone who asks questions.

• What's missing?

• Have we allowed enough fabrication hours?

• Who's supplying that component?

• Does the price include testing and certification?

• What about freight and commissioning?

• Are we actually clear about what we're supplying, and, what we're not?

What You'll Be Doing

You'll own the estimating and proposal process from a sufficiently defined technical opportunity through to customer submission and, when successful, clean handover into project delivery.

That includes:

• Reviewing client specifications & scopes

• Coordinating and developing detailed cost estimates across engineering, fabrication, materials, electrical, hydraulics, subcontract work, testing, certification, freight and site activities

• Working with Engineering, Production, Projects and Supply Chain to obtain reliable cost and schedule inputs

• Preparing clear, professional customer quotations and proposals

• Coordinating scope, pricing, assumptions, exclusions and commercial inputs

• Challenging incomplete information and identifying gaps before they make their way into a quote

• Coordinating internal reviews and approvals

• Managing proposal revisions and clarifications

• Maintaining visibility of open quotes, due dates and outstanding inputs

• Coordinating clean handover of successful proposals into Project Management

• Comparing estimates with actual project outcomes so our estimating gets better over time

You'll work closely with engineers, project managers, workshop supervisors, procurement, suppliers and management.

You won't be expected to design the solution.

You will be expected to understand it well enough (or have the curiosity to find out!) and work out what it takes to actually build and deliver it.

Who We're Looking For

We're deliberately open-minded about where you've developed your experience.

You might already be an estimator in an engineering or manufacturing business.

You could be a sales coordinator that has a natural curiosity about engineered solutions.

You might have come through fabrication, production or a trade and moved into estimating or planning.

You might be a project coordinator who is particularly good with costs, scopes and commercial detail.

What matters is that you understand how technical work gets delivered and have the curiosity to dig into something when the information doesn't quite add up.

You'll ideally bring:

• Experience in either estimating, quoting, proposals, production planning, project coordination or a similar technical role

• Practical exposure to manufacturing, fabrication, engineering, maritime, resources, heavy industry or another project-based technical environment

• The ability to read and gain an understanding of technical scopes, specifications and drawings

• Strong commercial awareness and attention to detail

• The ability to coordinate multiple estimates, people, inputs and deadlines

• Strong written communication skills and confidence preparing customer-facing proposals

• The confidence to ask engineers, tradespeople, suppliers and project managers questions when something isn't clear

• A genuine desire to understand how the equipment you're estimating is designed, manufactured and delivered

Curiosity Matters

We can teach you our systems, our products and how Thrust Maritime operates.

What is much harder to teach is the instinct to look at a scope and think:

"Hang on, what haven't we allowed for?"

We're looking for someone who wants to understand the work, not simply process it.

Someone who will walk into the workshop to understand how something gets fabricated, talk to an engineer about why something has been designed a particular way, call a supplier when a cost doesn't make sense, and follow an estimate through delivery to understand where we got it right and where we didn't.

Why Thrust Maritime?

You'll work on genuinely interesting projects across offshore, subsea, marine and defence.

You'll see the equipment you estimate actually being engineered and built at our facility.

You'll work directly with the people designing, fabricating and delivering it.

And you'll have the opportunity to build and improve the estimating and proposals capability rather than simply inherit a rigid process.

We're a relatively small specialist business, so your contribution will be visible and the quality of your work will have a direct impact on what we deliver and how successfully we deliver it.

If you enjoy understanding how things are built, pulling together the detail and making sure nothing important gets missed, we'd like to hear from you.