Senior Design Manager

The Work

LAUSD’s School Upgrade Program modernizes campuses across the nation’s second-largest school district. As Senior Design Manager, you are the lead design professional in the Design Department, planning, organizing, and directing design activities for the upgrade program and critical repair projects, and interfacing directly with the Division of the State Architect (DSA).

You manage the District’s design process end to end: you recommend architect assignments from the pre-qualified list, give architects clear direction on goals, standards, site, schedule, and budget, run an effective design review process, and see projects from conception through final review, approval, and handoff to Project Execution. You keep plans inside functional, budgetary, environmental, and legal requirements, and you review design changes so projects stay on budget.

You coordinate with District branches including Environmental Health and Safety, A/E Design Services, Maintenance and Operations, the School Occupancy Transitional Unit, the Asbestos Technical Unit, and Local Districts, and you represent the design program in community outreach.

• Design leadership for the School Upgrade Program and critical repair projects
• The District’s design process for the Facilities Planning and Development Division
• Architect selection recommendations from the pre-qualified list, and clear, consistent direction to design firms
• The design review process: quality, value for budgeted dollars, sustainability, and educational and building standards
• Design change review to keep projects within budget, with timely decisions and legally compliant documentation
• Coordination across District branches and participation in community outreach

• 15 years of full-time professional experience managing facilities design, or the planning and coordination of capital projects covering design, contract administration, cost estimating, and scheduling
• 5 of those years in the design, planning, and construction of K-12 educational facilities
• A bachelor’s degree in architecture or engineering (required for this role)
• A current California Certificate of Registration as an Architect, or Professional Engineer license (required for this role)
• The judgment to direct multiple architects and projects at once and keep decisions moving

• A master’s degree in architecture or engineering
• DSA process depth across approval, backcheck, and certification
• Experience building design standards, review processes, and training programs

Salary range: $191,000 to $210,000 per year, based on experience.

Benefits: health, dental, and vision at low cost; 401k; three weeks of PTO; and an ESOP (employee stock ownership) at no cost to you, with a 3% Safe Harbor contribution vested on day one.

MAAS has spent nearly 40 years earning the trust of 50+ educational institutions across California, managing over $10B in projects. That track record means the work here is stable, funded, and consequential. You are not chasing the next contract.

As a MAAS employee, you are also an owner. The company is 100% employee-owned through an ESOP, a retirement benefit provided at no cost to you, on top of your salary. MAAS is a profitable, well-run organization and our share price has more than doubled since the plan’s inception, with continued growth year over year. Your ownership stake builds the longer you stay, and ESOP participants nationally tend to accumulate 2.5x more in retirement savings than employees at non-ESOP companies.

In an industry not known for prioritizing culture, 96% of MAAS employees say it is a great place to work, and 100% say people genuinely care about each other.