Partnerships Manager; MEP Focus

DLB Associates is a premier engineering and consulting firm specializing in innovative, mission-critical solutions across hyperscale data centers, advanced infrastructure, and high-performance building systems. With over four decades of expertise, we partner with some of the world’s most influential companies to design and optimize environments that demand precision, scalability, and resilience.

Join us and be part of a team where your voice matters, your work makes an impact, and your growth is a shared priority.

Position Location: Remote - work virtually from anywhere in the United States

DLB recognizes salary ranges from job boards do not necessarily reflect our pay ranges. In many instances we out-compete those ranges for well-qualified candidates.

The Partnerships Manager (MEP Focus) provides operational leadership for DLB's external delivery partnerships, including subconsultant relationships, outsourced engineering resources, and offshore teams supporting the Design Department. This role is responsible for ensuring DLB has access to qualified, scalable external resources to support project delivery, business growth, and changing capacity demands.

Reporting to the Associate Director, Strategy & Growth, the Partnerships Manager works collaboratively with Project Managers, Program Managers, technical leaders, Contracts, Finance, and external partners to forecast resource needs, engage appropriate partners, develop and issue requests for proposals and fee requests, coordinate commercial requirements, and support successful integration of external resources into DLB project teams.

This is NOT a Business Development role; this person will manage existing partnerships internally and will support the Associate Director of Partnerships in new partnership development.
MEP and / or Construction experience is required.

Subconsultant Partnerships and Management (30%)

• Manage day-to-day relationships with DLB's network of engineering, design, architecture, and specialty subconsultant partners.
• Serve as the primary Design Department counterpart to the Contracts team for subconsultant engagement and administration.
• Coordinate with Project Managers, Program Managers, and technical leaders to understand project scope, schedule, and capacity requirements.
• Develop, issue, and manage requests for proposals, fee requests, and other commercial solicitations to external partners.
• Evaluate subconsultant proposals for scope alignment, pricing, schedule, qualifications, and overall fit.
• Coordinate with Contracts and internal stakeholders to support timely execution of NDAs, master agreements, and subcontracts.
• Maintain visibility into active subconsultant engagements, available partner capacity, and performance.

Offshore and Extended Capacity Management (30%)

• Provide operational leadership for DLB's offshore engineering and design resources.
• Coordinate with technical and project leadership to forecast offshore resource demand and align resources with project needs.
• Manage resource requests, allocation, onboarding, utilization, and capacity planning for offshore teams.
• Serve as a central point of coordination between offshore resources, external partner leadership, and DLB Project Managers.
• Monitor partner performance using established service levels, utilization metrics, and quality measures.
• Coordinate resolution of resource, performance, and delivery issues with internal and external stakeholders.
• Develop processes that enable DLB to scale external capacity efficiently as business demand changes.

Capacity Planning and Operational Excellence (20%)

• Develop and maintain visibility into external capacity, utilization, capabilities, and project demand.
• Partner with Design Department leadership to anticipate capacity gaps and develop external resource solutions.
• Establish and continuously improve standardized processes for requesting, selecting, and evaluating external resources.
• Develop reporting and performance metrics to support data-driven decisions regarding external capacity.
• Identify opportunities to improve cost effectiveness, resource utilization, and speed of deployment.
• Support development of policies, procedures, templates, and governance standards related to external partnerships.

Cross-Functional Partnership and Strategic Support (20%)

• Build strong working relationships across Design, Contracts, Finance, and Business Development.
• Communicate external resource availability, constraints, risks, and opportunities to…