Director, Preconstruction

Pivot Energy•Baltimore, MD

10d•Remote

About The Position

The Director, Preconstruction is a leadership role responsible for managing Pivot Energy’s preconstruction function across a portfolio of distributed generation, community solar, commercial solar, and energy storage projects. This role maintains strategic alignment, supports commercial direction, and governs preconstruction management from late-stage development through EPC execution and transition to project management. In addition to project and portfolio leadership responsibilities, the Director is accountable for developing a high-performing preconstruction team, managing scalable operating standards, reinforcing process consistency, developing talent, and ensuring alignment across Development, Engineering, Procurement, Finance, Legal, Compliance, Project Management, Construction Management, O&M, Asset Management, and other stakeholders as needed. The Director supports multiple concurrent programs and project portfolios while ensuring consistency in estimating methodologies, contract strategy, procurement coordination, budgeting discipline, risk management, schedule alignment, compliance integration, and execution readiness. The role serves as a key interface between leadership stakeholders and delivery teams and is expected to support enterprise-level project delivery maturity and operational performance. This position requires a sophisticated understanding of renewable energy project delivery models, EPC and commercial contracting structures, cost and schedule controls, job costing methodologies, ERP and project controls environments, portfolio risk management, organizational leadership, and program governance principles. The Director must balance strategic objectives with operational execution while driving predictable, scalable, and commercially sound project outcomes. The Director materially supports Pivot Energy’s eight focus areas throughout the preconstruction lifecycle: Stakeholder Management, Contract Management, Quality Management, Financial Management, Schedule Management, Compliance Management, Risk Management, and Document Management.

Requirements

7+ years of experience in renewable energy preconstruction, estimating, commercial management, project delivery, construction management, project controls, EPC management, or related infrastructure leadership roles.
3+ years of people leadership experience managing multidisciplinary teams project teams, or functional workstreams with accountability for performance outcomes.
Experience with EPC contracting, procurement strategy, budgeting, estimating, Basis of Estimate documentation, schedule management, and project execution planning.
Advanced understanding of solar PV and/or BESS project delivery including development-to-delivery handoff, permitting, engineering, procurement, construction readiness, and execution transition.
Strong leadership, communication, commercial, analytical, financial, and decision-making skills.
Experience supporting operational processes, governance frameworks, and scalable delivery standards, reporting routines, and cross-functional operating discipline.
Strong analytical, commercial, and financial management capabilities.
Ability to lead in high-growth, fast-paced environments with competing priorities, imperfect information, and changing business requirements.

Nice To Haves

5+ years of experience in solar and/or BESS preconstruction, estimating, commercial management, design coordination, project management, or construction management.
Experience managing geographically focus team.
Experience with Procore, MS Project, ERP systems, estimating platforms, BI/reporting tools, and project controls systems.
Understanding of compliance drivers (e.g. prevailing wage/apprenticeship, domestic content, safety, quality).
MBA, engineering degree, construction management degree, or related advanced professional credentials preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and develop a growing team of Preconstruction Managers, Senior Preconstruction Managers, and related delivery personnel.
Establish clear expectations for role ownership, communication, issue escalation, commercial rigor, documentation quality, and stakeholder responsiveness.
Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, operational discipline, and commercial awareness.
Promote leadership behaviors that reinforce transparency, ownership, consistency, documentation discipline, and proactive risk escalation.
Own a defined preconstruction book of business across multiple concurrent project portfolios, geographies, technologies, contractors, and customer or financing requirements.
Maintain reporting standards, project prioritization, portfolio controls, issue escalation, and operational controls that create predictability across the preconstruction function.
Monitor portfolio-wide schedule, cost, procurement, interconnection, permitting, compliance, contractor, and commercial risks and escalate material issues to leadership.
Resolve cross-functional blockers with Development, Procurement, Interconnection, Development Engineering, Legal, Finance, Compliance, Project Management, and Construction Management to keep projects moving through transition, EPCA execution, and execution readiness.
Drive consistency in project contracting, estimating standards, and handoff procedures.
Support portfolio-level procurement strategies, long-lead planning, preferred contractor engagement strategies, and market intelligence.
Serve as a senior point of contact for internal leadership, external contractor partners, consultants, vendors, and strategic stakeholders during preconstruction.
Align Development, Development Engineering, Interconnection, Procurement, Legal, Compliance, Finance, Project Management teams around project execution and delivery readiness.
Ensure communication protocols, escalation pathways, Investment Committee visibility and governance processes are consistently followed.
Promote alignment between development assumptions, commercial commitments, budget structures, procurement strategy, interconnection dependencies, compliance obligations, and execution planning.
Resolve cross-functional friction early enough to preserve schedule, scope clarity, commercial position, transition timing, EPCA execution, and execution readiness.
Ensure material blockers are framed with issue, cause, impact, options, owner, due date, recommendation, and decision required so leadership and governance forums can act without ambiguity.
Oversee commercial contracting and pre-award execution activities across project portfolios.
Support EPC negotiations, subcontracting strategy, owner-furnished versus contractor-furnished scope decisions, commercial risk allocation, and contract-exhibit completeness.
Ensure established contract standards, fallback positions, negotiation frameworks, and approval workflows, and deviation logs are maintained.
Ensure negotiated commercial terms transition cleanly into execution without loss of scope clarity, schedule obligation, compliance obligation, document context, or risk visibility.
Drive consistency in commercial clarifications, assumptions, exclusions, allowances, contingency treatment, and risk registers.
Escalate major commercial deviations and contractor exceptions, non-standard risk allocations, and unresolved legal or business positions.
Maintain and support organizational standards for bid package quality, estimate completeness, constructability review, design basis clarity, and execution readiness.
Ensure consistent application of QA/QC principles throughout the preconstruction lifecycle.
Drive lessons-learned initiatives and continuous improvement programs across estimating, procurement, contracting, and project setup processes, including use of scorecards, issue trends, quality history, schedule performance, change behavior, and commercial discipline.
Support contractor prequalification and performance evaluation processes.
Ensure field execution feedback and O&M requirements are integrated into preconstruction workflows where they materially affect scope, budget, contract exhibits, or execution readiness.
Support oversight of project cost intelligence and analytics, budget development, contingency strategy, procurement cost integration, and cost control methodologies.
Collaborate with Procurement, Finance, Development, Engineering, and internal stakeholders to ensure owner-furnished equipment, subcontractor scope, vendor costs, and third-party services and internal owner costs are accurately incorporated into project budgets.
Maintain strong Basis of Estimate discipline by ensuring all estimates clearly document scope basis, design basis, assumptions, exclusions, clarifications, allowances, contingencies, escalation assumptions, pricing sources, unresolved risks, and reconciliation between estimate versions as projects progress through preconstruction.
Ensure budgets are structured for execution and job-cost visibility by aligning scope and risk to appropriate cost codes, cost types, and work breakdown structures that reflect contract obligations and commercial risk.
Drive value engineering initiatives and cost optimization strategies while maintaining quality, compliance, operability, revenue, financing, and schedule objectives.
Coordinate with Finance to ensure cost forecasting accuracy, budget continuity, and cost reporting consistency.
Ensure budget continuity from early-stage estimate through contract execution.
Maintain project-level and portfolio-level scheduling standards, including visibility into development transition, bid issuance, proposal review, contract negotiation, permitting, procurement, interconnection, engineering, NTP readiness, and execution handoff.
Manage the assigned book of business against transition and EPCA execution run-rate expectations, currently approximately three projects per week or the then-current approved business target.
Ensure schedules are logic-driven, commercially aligned, resource-aware, and capable of supporting leadership decision-making, contractor accountability, Investment Committee visibility, and external commitment management.
Ensure schedule alignment across development, engineering, procurement, permitting, interconnection, and construction readiness activities.
Ensure contractors either utilize Pivot’s template or integrate their schedules into it in a manner that allows Pivot, as owner and IPP, to consistently monitor project progress and performance across the full project lifecycle.
Identify systemic schedule risks and implement mitigation strategies across project portfolios.
Drive schedule accountability with contractors, consultants, vendors, and internal stakeholders, including early escalation of missed commitments, delayed decisions, and external dependency risk.
Ensure preconstruction activities align with applicable compliance obligations, incentive program requirements, labor standards, domestic content requirements, FEOC restrictions, safety expectations, quality requirements, and internal governance policies.
Support implementation of evolving regulatory market, investor, tax, and internal policy requirements into project delivery standards, scope of work, Basis of Estimate assumptions, procurement strategy, and contract exhibits.
Partner with Compliance, Legal, Finance, Procurement, and Project Management teams to establish repeatable controls and audit-ready documentation practices.
Ensure compliance obligations are appropriately incorporated into contract exhibits, procurement workflows, contractor submittal requirements, execution planning, cost assumptions, and handoff packages, and procurement workflows.
Escalate compliance ambiguity or policy changes early when they may affect scope, cost, schedule, procurement strategy, risk allocation, or project economics.
Serve as the primary preconstruction risk manager and processor of projects entering the execution pipeline.
Support portfolio-level risk identification, escalation, mitigation planning, and governance processes.
Maintain established risk management frameworks that support predictable execution outcomes and informed decision-making.
Evaluate commercial, technical, schedule, procurement, interconnection, permitting, regulatory, compliance, contractor, stakeholder, and organizational risks across project portfolios.
Ensure Investment Committee or appropriate governance stakeholders are notified when risks or unresolved issues threaten approved economics, schedule commitments, transition timing, EPCA execution, LNTP readiness, or execution viability.
Ensure risk ownership, escalation pathways, and mitigation tracking are clearly documented and actively managed.
Support strategic decisions regarding delivery methodology, contractor engagement models, procurement strategy, and commercial positioning.
Anticipate second-order impacts of unresolved risk, including impact to financeability, revenue commitments, customer commitments, tax credit qualification, contractor accountability, and execution handoff.
Support standardized document control procedures, naming conventions, approval workflows, and repository governance.
Drive operational consistency across estimating files, bid packages, contract exhibits, handoff packages, and reporting systems.
Promote disciplined documentation and traceability across all phases of preconstruction and project setup.
Ensure finalized contract documents, supporting exhibits, execution assumptions, and decision records are organized and accessible to Project Management and downstream stakeholders.
Champion continuous improvement initiatives that improve scalability, efficiency, reporting accuracy, AI-readiness, document quality, and execution quality.

Benefits

Excellent health/dental/vision insurance benefits with up to 100% of premiums covered by the company
Four weeks of vacation plus employment milestone bonus vacations
Company paid life insurance and short- & long-term disability coverage
Generous parental leave
401(k) matching (after vesting period)
Work from home stipend for new employees
Public transit reimbursement
PTO for volunteering in the community
Charitable donation matching up to $500/year
Professional development and educational reimbursements