Engineer, Operational Planning & Optimization

Journey with us! Combine your career goals and sense of adventure by joining our incredible team of employees at Royal Caribbean Group. We are proud to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, and excellent career development opportunities, each offering unique ways to explore the world.

We are proud to be the vacation-industry leader with global brands — including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises — the most innovative fleet and private destinations, and the best people. Together, we are dedicated to turning the vacation of a lifetime into a lifetime of vacations for our guests.

Royal Caribbean Group’s Celebrity Cruises Brand has an exciting career opportunity for a full-time Engineer, Operational Planning and Optimization on the Hotel Operations Team reporting to the AVP, Hotel Operations Strategic Initiatives and Program Management.

This position will work onsite in Miami, Florida.

This position is not eligible for work authorization sponsorship.

Position Summary:

Celebrity Cruises is seeking a highly analytical Industrial Engineer to optimize the end-to-end employee cabin allocation and planning process and strengthen operational planning across the fleet. This role will lead workflow redesign, system improvements, and data governance related to cabin allocation and usage to reduce revenue cabin displacement and improve forecasting accuracy.

The position will also serve as the owner of fleetwide staffing (PAR) planning, developing data-driven models and long-range staffing forecasts aligned with available cabin capacity and operational needs.

At the core of this role is ownership of the cabin request management process, including its supporting systems, workflows, and governance, working in close partnership with shipboard and shoreside stakeholders.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Current State Assessment (People, Process, Systems)

• Conduct a full diagnostic of the request-to-approval workflow across shipboard and shoreside teams.

• Evaluate system configurations, data fields, request categories, and approval logic.

• Map user roles and identify inconsistencies, workarounds, and operational gaps.

• Analyze historical usage, revenue displacement, and trends in request mis-categorization.

Process Engineering and Design

• Create a standardized, enterprise-level workflow for request intake, approval hierarchy, documentation, and exception management.

• Develop RACI models, SOPs, and clearly defined approval rights.

• Recommend process simplification to reduce complexity and error points.

Data and Systems Optimization

• Define the data model and key metrics for forecasting, budgeting, and performance tracking.

• Collaborate with IT, Revenue, and Hotel Operations on data flow automation and system integration.

• Recommend system enhancements to enforce governance and eliminate unauthorized approvals.

Financial Impact and Budget Recommendations

• Quantify the financial impact of employee cabin usage.

• Develop a financial planning framework and budget guidelines.

• Identify opportunities to mitigate revenue displacement through optimized cabin utilization.

Enterprise Alignment and Scalability

• Ensure recommendations can scale across the Royal Caribbean Group fleet.

• Partner with cross-brand stakeholders on process and system alignment.

• Support change management and fleetwide rollout.

Implementation Support

• Prepare training materials, dashboards, and SOP documentation.

• Monitor adoption and effectiveness post-launch.

Capacity and Demand Planning

• Develop capacity models to forecast demand based on ship class, itinerary, seasonality, and operational programs.

• Identify forecast gaps between available inventory and expected employee cabin needs.

• Provide scenario-based planning recommendations for peak periods, dry docks, special projects, and regulatory staffing.

Annual and Long-Range Planning Integration

• Build a long-term cabin utilization plan aligned with annual operating plans and multi-year deployment strategies.

• Partner with Finance, Revenue Management, and Hotel Operations to incorporate usage assumptions into annual budgets and long-range planning.

• Establish a governance rhythm to track forecast versus actual usage.

Crew (PAR) Planning Optimization

• Lead the end-to-end crew staffing (PAR) planning process across seasons, itineraries, and operational programs.

• Develop data-driven PAR models incorporating historical trends, operational drivers, entertainment programs, regulatory staffing, and seasonal fluctuations.

• Align staffing plans with available cabin capacity to prevent unplanned occupancy or revenue displacement.

• Partner with HR, Marine, Hotel, Safety, Entertainment, and Finance to ensure staffing decisions reflect operational realities and capacity constraints.

• Develop a long-range PAR planning framework to support multi-year deployment strategies, newbuild introductions, and fleetwide staffing changes.

Qualifications, Knowledge and Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, Systems Engineering, Operations Research, or related field.

• 3–7 years of experience in process engineering, operations optimization, or systems transformation.

• Strong process mapping and workflow design experience.

• Ability to translate operational needs into scalable SOPs and system requirements.

• Intermediate to advanced analytical capability.

• Experience with operational or logistical systems.

• Experience in capacity planning, workforce forecasting, or operational demand modeling.

• Strong communication and stakeholder‑management skills.

• Ability to work across shipboard and shoreside environments.

Preferred

• Experience in hospitality, cruise, transportation, or aviation resource planning.

• Familiarity with revenue management or resource capacity modeling.

• Experience with enterprise system integration.

• Lean Six Sigma training or certification.

Key Competencies

• Strategic and enterprise mindset.

• Process design and continuous improvement.

• Data driven decision making.

• Systems thinking.

• Change leadership.

• Cross functional collaboration.

• Problem framing and solution architecture.

• Enterprise-level operational planning and scenario modeling.

We know there's a lot to consider. As you go through the application process, our recruiters will be glad to provide guidance, and more relevant details to answer any additional questions. Thank you again for your interest in Royal Caribbean Group. We'll hope to see you onboard soon!

It is the policy of the Company to ensure equal employment and promotion opportunity to qualified candidates without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, sexuality, gender identity or expression, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Royal Caribbean Group and each of its subsidiaries prohibit and will not tolerate discrimination or harassment.