Principal Engineer Mine Planning

About Us

At Covalent Lithium, we are genuinely passionate about creating a clean energy future and supporting our teams who enable this vision.

Following the commissioning of our mine and concentrator at Mt Holland in 2024, we recently celebrated our first production of battery -grade lithium hydroxide at our Kwinana Refinery. We are now a fully integrated mine-to-refinery operation, supplying high quality lithium hydroxide to global markets and enabling approximately 1 million electric vehicles to go on the road, every year for the next 50 years.

We are proud to foster a culture where people with different skills, experiences and backgrounds are welcomed and set-up for success.

We support, empower and reward our people with a range of benefits:

• Competitive remuneration, and annual incentives for eligible employees
• Access to discounts, recognition and rewards
• Access to flexible work arrangements
• Dedicated wellbeing program support and discounted health insurance
• Equal access to paid parental leave, financial support, return to work and parenting room
• Salary sacrifice options for superannuation and novated leasing
• Discounted FIFO parking with Perth Airport

The Role

We're currently seeking an experienced Principal Mining Engineer to join our Mining team.

You will be responsible for providing technical leadership and strategic oversight of mine planning and execution at Mt Holland. The role ensures safe, efficient, and cost-effective mining outcomes by integrating long-term development strategies with short-term operational delivery. It requires strong contractor performance management, innovation in automation and decarbonisation, and alignment with Covalent’s sustainability, safety, and cultural objectives.

This is a permanent, full time position that will spend 50% of time in our Kwinana head office and 50% on site at our Mt Holland Mine and Concentrator.

Key Responsibilities 

• Demonstrate visible leadership in safety and actively contribute to a proactive safety culture.
• Lead the preparation and delivery of the Life-of-Mine Plan, including long-term development strategies, annual budgets, and quarterly operational plans.
• Provide governance and oversight to ensure that medium-term and short-term mine plans, prepared by the relevant engineers, are aligned with the Life-of-Mine strategy, corporate objectives, mill feed requirements, and cost profiles. Validate and double-check plans to ensure compliance and consistency across planning horizons.
• Review and approve mine designs, pit optimisations, staging sequences, waste dump and haul road designs, and rehabilitation strategies developed by the planning team.
• Ensure that all mine plans are compliant with geotechnical, hydrogeological, and geo metallurgical requirements, including slope stability, dewatering, and ore variability.
• Oversee production scheduling to ensure the quality and reliability of ore feed tonnes, grade, and blends to the processing plant, while monitoring plan-to-actual compliance.
• Drive contractor integration by ensuring mine plans are achievable within available fleet capacity, productivity, and manning.
• Lead technical input into mining tenders, including review of productivity assumptions, fleet selection, BCM rates, and pricing models.
• Direct scenario modelling and trade-off studies for accelerated mine plans, alternative fleet strategies (autonomous, electric, hybrid), and deferred stripping options.
• Maintain mine planning governance processes, including reconciliation of actuals against plan, reserves reporting, and compliance with the Mine Safety Management System (MSMS).
• Provide high-level technical reporting, operational reviews, and strategic input to management and the Board.
• Collaborate with geotechnical, geology, processing, and HSE teams to ensure integrated mine plans that optimise safety, cost, productivity, and recovery.
• Oversee the implementation of digital planning ensuring accurate data integration, performance monitoring, and decision-making.
• Monitor emerging technologies and assess their application to Covalent operations, with a focus on automation, decarbonisation, and operational efficiency.
• Champion continuous improvement initiatives by identifying and embedding technical and operational efficiencies across the mining value chain.
• Provide technical input into budget forecasts, cost models, and NPAT performance.
• Provide leadership, guidance, and technical oversight to the mine planning team, including short-term and medium-term engineers, ensuring their outputs align with the Life-of-Mine and corporate objectives.

Role Requirements

• Degree Qualified Mining Engineer (or equivalent).
• Minimum 8 years’ open pit mining experience, with demonstrated leadership in technical services.
• Proven capability in mine planning (short, medium, long-term) and strategic mine design.
• Demonstrated success in contractor management and tender evaluations.
• Strong exposure to automation, digital systems, and decarbonisation technologies in mining.
• Experience working with underground workings (stability, dewatering, safety management), though not requiring underground production experience.
• Advanced knowledge of WHS (Mines) Regulations 2022 and environmental compliance.
• Proficiency in Alastri APS and supporting tools (Spry, Hexagon, Power BI).
• Strong business acumen with the ability to connect technical decisions to financial outcomes.
• Excellent interpersonal, report writing, and presentation skills

A full position description is available upon request via email: careers@covalentlithium.com

A competitive remuneration package commensurate with the role, candidate experience, skills and qualifications will be offered.

Our team members are encouraged to bring their whole selves to work. Candidates from all backgrounds and ages are encouraged to apply, including First Nations People, those who identify as LGBTIQ+, people with disabilities and those with neurodiverse, intersectional, or multiple diverse characteristics.

Covalent Lithium is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer, with a focus on our employees. We recognise skills, expertise, commitment and living our values of Purpose, Care, Accountability and Collaboration. Our goal is to attract, develop, motivate, reward, and retain the best people in the industry.