Lead Scheduler - Data Center Construction

Turner & Townsend•San Francisco, CA

11d•$170,000 - $210,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Turner & Townsend is seeking a Lead Scheduler to own the schedule review discipline for a confidential hyperscale data center client. This role involves setting the standard for schedule reviews and managing a portfolio of independent schedule reviews. The Lead Scheduler will test the realism of developer-provided delivery dates and define what constitutes a rigorous review for the team. This is a working lead role, combining senior reviewer responsibilities with team leadership. The individual will conduct ground-up reviews of developer schedules, test critical paths and delivery dates, and identify unsupported claims. Beyond individual reviews, the Lead Scheduler will establish the methodology, evidence standards, and quality control for all schedule reviews conducted by the team. They will also prioritize team efforts based on risk and urgency and provide a second level of review for high-stakes findings. This role is distinct from a Program Manager's role, focusing on providing schedule evidence rather than owning the overall risk picture. It is also not purely managerial, as the Lead Scheduler will maintain a caseload of their own reviews to stay current with tools and standards. The role requires close collaboration with Program Managers and other review discipline leads across the region. Preferred locations are San Francisco or Northern Virginia, with remote work considered for the right candidate.

Requirements

10 - 15 years of planning and scheduling experience, data center or other mission-critical facility delivery strongly preferred.
Demonstrated ability to independently review and challenge someone else's development and construction schedule, not just build one.
Prior experience training, mentoring, or reviewing the work of other schedule or planning professionals.
Working fluency in P6 or equivalent scheduling software, including logic, critical path, and float credibility.
Familiarity with earned value management (EVM) or similar progress-measurement methods, to independently sanity-check a developer's reported percent complete against actual schedule progress.
Practical knowledge of long lead equipment timelines, utility and energization sequencing, permitting, and commissioning and testing durations in complex facility construction.
Understanding of acceleration levers in data center construction, and the judgment to tell a real one from a cosmetic one.
Comfortable delivering a difficult finding to a developer directly, professionally, and on a deadline, and comfortable holding a colleague's work to that same standard.
Able to work from incomplete or dated information and state the caveats plainly, rather than waiting for a perfect dataset.
Proven ability to manage competing priorities across multiple concurrent projects, and across a team's workload, not just your own.
Strong written communication. Findings need to be usable by people who were not in the review, and feed directly into the client-facing due diligence report.
Technologically proficient, including MS Suite and Google Workspace in addition to scheduling software.

Nice To Haves

Preferably located in/near San Francisco, CA or Northern VA but will consider remote candidates as well as long as they are able to travel occasionally for site visits and team collaboration.
AACE PSP or PMI-SP certification is a plus, not required.
Market sector experience: Data center development, mission critical facilities, or complex technical and hyperscale buildings strongly preferred.
Travel: Minimal, approximately 3 days per month, plus occasional site visits and team collaboration.

Responsibilities

Schedule review: Assess developer construction schedules from the ground up: logic, critical path and near-critical activity credibility, float, and sequencing. Confirm whether the delivery date, power connection, and commissioning and testing timelines are actually realistic, against the client's and our team's benchmarks.
Supply chain and resourcing: Review the equipment and staffing plan behind a schedule, including long lead equipment orders and resource loading, and confirm whether the labor and materials backing the dates are firm commitments or assumptions.
Evidence discipline: Be precise about what is known versus what is assumed. State plainly whether a number or date is confirmed, estimated, or simply what the developer has claimed, and hold your team to the same standard.
Risk identification: Flag the risks a clean-looking schedule hides: long lead equipment, permitting, utility connections, seasonal weather, and compressed commissioning windows.
Trend and variance analysis: Track how each schedule moves from one review to the next, not just a single point-in-time snapshot, and flag material variances and their likely cause.
Acceleration analysis: Where a date is at risk, assess what could actually recover time, and which options are real versus cosmetic.
Delivery handover: At construction start, make sure a clear schedule record, what was confirmed, what was assumed, and what is still an open risk, is handed to the onsite construction team on every deal your team touches.
Setting the standard: Define what a complete, defensible schedule review looks like: the checklist, the depth of testing, and the level of evidence required, and hold every review on the team to it.
Team allocation: Decide where the team''s time goes across a shifting set of deals, based on where the risk and urgency are highest, and resolve it when demand outpaces capacity.
Quality control: Review your team's higher-stakes findings before they reach a client, catching gaps or unsupported claims before anyone else does.
Benchmarking: Build and maintain the library of schedule benchmarks, typical durations for long lead equipment, permitting, energization, and commissioning, that the whole team reviews against, so judgment calls are grounded in real data rather than memory.
Training and development: Bring new reviewers up to the team's standard, and develop the judgment of less experienced schedule reviewers over time.
Process improvement: Build and refine the templates, tools, and checklists the schedule discipline runs on as the portfolio and the team grow.
SOX control responsibilities may be part of this role, which are to be adhered to where applicable.