Substation Project Manager

Substation Project Manager

The Substation Project Manager leads greenfield and brownfield projects at substations, switching stations, and collector stations from concept through completion. This role oversees project financial performance, schedule, scope, and quality while building strong relationships with owners, subcontractors, regulatory agencies, and other stakeholders. The Substation Project Manager provides operational and project-management leadership, focusing on financial oversight, team and client coordination, future-project scoping, staffing decisions, and translating brief client requests into detailed, executable engineering scopes.

Responsibilities include managing, directing, and coordinating all aspects of greenfield and brownfield substation, switching station, and collector station projects from initial concept through closeout. Prepare detailed proposals, support and lead client presentations, and actively participate in contract negotiations. Provide overall project management including siting, environmental review, permitting, planning, estimating, engineering coordination, right-of-way acquisition, project controls, bid phase services, procurement, constructability reviews, material management, construction management, and project closeout.

Develop, maintain, and monitor project schedules, manage project scope, and control project costs to ensure successful delivery within agreed budgets and timelines. Oversee internal project financials, including budget development, financial tracking, and comparison of costs against individual contributors. Support staffing decisions by forecasting resource needs, assigning appropriate engineers based on experience and project requirements, and coordinating with internal teams to ensure adequate project coverage.

Assist with legal coordination, risk management, change management, and human resource issues related to project execution. Serve as the primary point of contact for clients, leading client coordination, strategic planning, master scope management, budget and financial discussions, subcontracting strategies, project staffing plans, environmental compliance efforts, facility support, and schedule attainment. Manage all aspects of project communication, ensuring timely, clear, and accurate information flow among internal teams, clients, subcontractors, and other stakeholders.

Develop and implement project policies and procedures, establish project control systems, and execute the project execution plan to align with client standards and internal quality requirements. Work closely with the project team to ensure that deliverables and services meet client expectations and comply with internal QA/QC guidelines. Report regularly on project progress, cost and schedule metrics, procurement status, safety or environmental concerns, design questions, potential impacts, and issues requiring additional office support.

Dedicate a significant portion of time to internal and external meetings with project teams, clients, and stakeholders to track and guide project execution. Prepare for future projects by responding to requests for services, developing detailed scopes and cost estimates, anticipating staffing requirements, and planning resource allocation. Interpret new client standards, quality concerns, documentation requirements, and automation requests, then communicate those changes to the team and adjust the overall delivery approach as needed.

Translate brief client requests into comprehensive, executable scopes of work, including associated foundations, steel, labor, hours, costs, and approval requirements, and issue these scopes back to the client for approval. Coordinate substantial technical engineering input, ensuring that client requests, even when brief, are expanded into complete deliverables and that the necessary technical resources are engaged. Provide additional bandwidth for operational leadership and project-management oversight within the substation business, supporting a robust backlog of work.

Travel to client offices and project sites as needed for meetings, site visits, and stakeholder coordination, including occasional overnight travel and after-hours meetings across time zones.

Essential skills include a bachelor's degree in engineering from an accredited curriculum, preferably in electrical engineering. At least 7 years of utility substation project experience, including a minimum of 3 years of related project management experience. Demonstrated experience managing capital projects in a utility substation environment, including capital upgrades and capital project management. Substantial technical engineering experience related to substation design, construction, maintenance, and engineering, enabling the ability to expand brief client requests into complete technical scopes.

Proven ability to manage greenfield and brownfield substation projects, including scope development, bidding, construction oversight, and project…