Engineering Manager - Construction (WMS3)

State of Washington•Spokane County – Spokane, WA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is seeking a highly experienced engineering professional to serve as the Engineering Manager – Construction and provide strategic leadership, direction, and oversight for Eastern Region’s transportation construction program. This position leads a diverse organization of engineering and construction professionals, ensuring projects are delivered safely, efficiently, on schedule, within budget, and in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, policies, and engineering standards. The candidate selected for this role will build collaborative relationships with regional and statewide leaders, external partners, and community stakeholders while exercising significant independent judgment to resolve complex engineering, construction, contract administration, workforce, and program delivery issues. This role is responsible for administering capital construction projects throughout Eastern Washington.

Requirements

Current registration as a Professional Engineer in Washington State or the ability to obtain Washington State registration through reciprocity within six months of appointment.
Possession of a valid driver's license and the ability to travel independently throughout Washington State to attend meetings, inspect project sites, respond to emergencies, and support program delivery.
Ability to attend key meetings, events, and activities in-person, including occasional trips to various regional offices, HQ in Olympia, and other locations throughout the state for statewide training and coordination meetings.
Ability to be available after hours as needed to respond to emergencies.
Leadership & Employee Development: Demonstrates the ability to lead, develop, and mentor supervisors, managers, engineers, and professional staff. Builds an inclusive, collaborative, and high-performing work environment that supports employee engagement, workforce development, and succession planning. Provides clear expectations, coaching, performance feedback, and accountability.
Strategic Leadership: Demonstrates the ability to develop and implement strategies that support organizational goals, legislative commitments, and agency priorities. Makes sound decisions in complex and changing environments while balancing safety, scope, schedule, budget, risk, and stakeholder needs.
Program & Project Delivery: Demonstrates the ability to lead the delivery of complex transportation engineering or construction programs involving multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, and significant public impact. Applies risk-based decision-making to achieve successful project outcomes.
Construction & Contract Administration: Demonstrates experience interpreting engineering plans, specifications, policies, procedures, and construction contract requirements. Demonstrates the ability to resolve complex project issues, contract disputes, claims, and change-order negotiations.
Communication & Relationship Building: Demonstrates the ability to communicate effectively with executive leadership, employees, contractors, local agencies, tribal governments, regulatory agencies, elected officials, and the public. Builds and maintains collaborative partnerships that support successful project delivery.
Operational Excellence: Demonstrates the ability to manage organizational resources, workloads, staffing needs, and competing priorities. Uses data and performance measures to support decision-making and continuous improvement.
Growth Mindset: Actively demonstrates a commitment to learning and growth.
Service-Oriented: Takes action to meet the needs of others.

Nice To Haves

Transportation Project Delivery: Demonstrated experience leading transportation construction, project delivery, or engineering programs of significant size, complexity, and public visibility.
Demonstrated experience administering design-build and design-bid-build transportation projects.
Organizational Leadership & Change: Demonstrated experience building collaborative relationships across multidisciplinary teams and organizational boundaries.
Demonstrated experience leading organizational change, workforce planning, and succession planning initiatives.
Staff Development: Demonstrated experience coaching, mentoring, and developing supervisors, managers, or professional engineering staff.
Federal-Aid Project Stewardship: Demonstrated knowledge of federal-aid project delivery requirements and stewardship responsibilities.
Transportation Program & Risk Management: Demonstrated experience working with transportation design, environmental, construction, program management, and maintenance functions.
Demonstrated ability to identify, evaluate, and mitigate program and project risks.

Responsibilities

Plan, lead, strategize, organize, and control the construction work performed by the organization.
Ensure the optimal use of the organization's resources and enhance employee effectiveness through timely appraisals and professional development opportunities.
Act for the Assistant Regional Administrator (ARA) for Construction in their absence.
Provide leadership for all Construction engineering activities; coach, mentor and guide the managers of the construction offices.
Review construction projects, interpret the contract documents, and provide guidance to the Project Engineers.
Coordinate Eastern Region construction activities with Headquarters, other State, City, and County agencies, as well as transit organizations, the State of Idaho, and Canada.
Collaborate with the Engineering Manager - Development to manage workforce and workload amongst the project offices.
Ensure strong communication is maintained between executive management, Design, Construction, support groups and Maintenance organizations for region design and construction projects.
Develop and implement strategies for safety throughout the organization, and facilitate safety to the travelling public, State and contractor workforce.