Senior Design Manager

Role Summary

Suffolk is seeking people who are bold, curious, innovative, and caring. Looking for the career opportunity of a lifetime, we will challenge and inspire you to be your very best. As part of a Design Build team, the Sr. Design Manager will proactively and collaboratively work with a unified team of Suffolk stakeholders and design professionals through Suffolk’s optimized end‑to‑end design‑build management process.

This role demands strategic project leadership, technical rigor, and seamless coordination across disciplines and stakeholders to ensure design excellence and delivery precision. The ideal candidate is deeply committed to enhancing the efficiency, accuracy, completeness, and speed of the design, documentation, and construction process, championing Suffolk’s design‑build vision and leveraging innovative tools, technologies, and procedures to exceed client expectations.

During each phase of a design‑build project lifecycle, the Sr. Manager will lead the interface between Suffolk Construction, external design and industry professionals, trade partners, regulatory agencies, and other project stakeholders to mitigate risk and achieve project goals, all while embracing a culture of authentic collaboration and technical competence.

Pursuit Phase

• Review RFQ/RFPs and develop a deliverable matrix.
• Participate in negotiating teaming and design services agreements.
• Identify, assess and develop mitigation strategies for design‑related risks.
• Interview/approve Design Managers and oversee proposal development.
• Align design deliverables with cost models and schedules.
• Coordinate scope validation, value engineering, and RFP submittals.

Design Phase

• Provide technical guidance to external design professionals and manage scope control.
• Facilitate integrated design workshops and interdisciplinary coordination.
• Track permitting and other third‑party coordination (e.g., governmental, authorities having jurisdiction).
• With external design professionals, resolve design comments and drive recovery plans.
• Oversee delegated designs and trade assist efforts.

Preconstruction & Construction Phase

• Support estimating, scheduling, and change management.
• Resolve technical questions and coordinate field/design integration.
• Oversee RFIs, shop drawings, and design change documentation.
• Conduct constructability reviews and monitor as‑built updates.
• Continue permit services and support commissioning.

Close‑out Phase

• Ensure completion of all contractual design obligations.
• Lead post‑project reviews and document lessons learned.
• Review Record Drawings and finalize financial close‑out.
• Issue warranty correspondence and share design insights for future projects.

• Certification as licensed architect or professional engineer as well as DBIA is strongly preferred.
• Professional degree in Architecture, Engineering, or Construction Management is required; advanced degree preferred.
• 8–10 years of increasingly responsible experience in the professional design services industry, with a background in Design Build design coordination and/or management; specific experience in education projects is preferred.
• Proven success working on multiple projects and building types across all project phases.
• Experience managing teams through the duration of the project's design process, including completion of Construction Documentation (Drawing & Specification).
• Extensive knowledge of industry standards and resources.
• Shared enthusiasm for executing the Suffolk Design vision, with a demonstrated willingness to rethink traditional methodologies and to passionately seek out advancements in project delivery outcomes.
• Desire to be part of something bigger than oneself and appreciate the opportunity that Suffolk and Suffolk Design bring to radically transform the design and construction industry.
• Genuinely collaborative and open to the expert opinions of leading construction and technology industry experts, all the while able to confidently bring technical design knowledge to the discussion.
• Deep awareness and sensitivity to the workings of the design and construction processes, and the ability to interpret and develop creative, technically…