Permit Technician

Shoreline is an inclusive City that endeavors to build a work culture which embraces diversity, encourages participation, and promotes equity.

The City of Shoreline’s Planning and Community Development Department is searching for its next customer-focused and detail-oriented Permit Technician. In this role, you will assist with processing permit applications, reviewing plans and documents for completeness, and providing support to customers navigating the permit process.

The department is committed to bringing the community’s vision of a welcoming, equitable, sustainable, and safe community into being by providing exceptional customer service, community guidance, and creative problem solving. As a Permit Technician you will become a member of the Permit Services Team. The Permit Services Team is made up of five Permit Technicians, and administrative and extra help staff.

This team is responsible for providing exceptional customer service and administering permitting functions for the City, including building, land use/planning, fire, film permits, franchise utilities, right-of-way, and special events. Because of these in-person service needs, current remote work is limited to one day per week, with the potential to increase to two days per week as staffing allows. Remote-work days are set at the manager’s discretion in coordination with the employee to ensure adequate service coverage.

The successful candidate will have excellent communication skills, a strong attention to detail, experience in providing exceptional customer service, and enjoy a team where continuous improvement is at the heart of what we do. A collaborative, solution-oriented attitude is essential to this work, along with experience working within permitting systems/processes. This position also works frequently and partners with other departments and outside agencies.

The City is in the midst of evaluating the permitting process and building an implementation roadmap to streamline and improve permitting processes. As a Permit Technician, you will play a key role in implementing improvements as the department works towards creating a simpler and easier to understand process for our customers that meets City and State performance measures. As part of this effort, the department is preparing to implement a new customer-facing permitting portal in 2026, and the Permit Services team will play central role in this major change.

Shoreline is a growing and diversifying community of over 60,000 people located directly north of Seattle in King County, Washington. The City is in the midst of an exciting transformation, with two recently-opened light rail stations and a recent Comprehensive Plan update setting the policy direction for the City’s growth for the next 20 years. At the City of Shoreline, you will be part of the team at the forefront of this transformation.

The City is committed to an aggressive reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through Resolution 494 and the recently adopted Climate Action Plan. Shoreline recently declared its commitment to becoming an actively anti-racist city by passing Resolution 467 and working to understand how undoing racism in all forms shows up in city policies and services.

This position performs a wide range of permit-processing duties, including intake, review, routing, and issuance; providing clear guidance on requirements and procedures to the public, City staff, and partner agencies; assisting with permit plan processing; delivering customer service across multiple channels; and supporting the team in coordinating permitting functions for the assigned program area.

Receives direction from higher level management staff or department director.

• Perform complex and difficult technical clerical duties in support of several departments.
• Accept, review and issue building, land use, fire, right of way, mechanical and other various permits according to established procedures.
• Explain department policies and procedures to permit applicants and assist customers with completion of forms.
• Determine and collect appropriate fees for each new…