Senior Coastal Engineer

Environmental Science Associates•San Francisco, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Environmental Science Associates (ESA) is seeking a Senior Coastal Engineer to provide leadership for ESA’s coastal engineering and resilience practice across California and beyond. This is a leadership role at the forefront of coastal resilience—spanning coastal hazards analysis, adaptation planning, and implementation—while delivering high-impact solutions. The ideal candidate is a professionally licensed engineer with 15+ years of experience leading coastal engineering projects, including expertise in nature-based solutions, coastal resilience planning, coastal hazards analysis (waves, runup, erosion, and flooding) as well as flood management along the U.S. Pacific Coast and beyond. They will lead and manage complex coastal engineering projects from concept through construction, including coastal hazards and vulnerability assessments, engineering evaluations, and erosion/flooding studies, technical reports, design plan sets, specifications, cost estimates (PS&E packages), construction schedules, and/or construction support. This role requires adeptness in the engineering steps required to move projects from concept to construction bid package, including coordination with multidisciplinary teams such as geotechnical, structural, and hydraulic engineers as well as coastal planners and landscape architects. The Senior Coastal Engineer will provide senior engineer review and oversight on large-scale coastal engineering projects, with an emphasis on Living Shorelines, nature-based solutions and multi-benefit flood and erosion protection, and have experience integrating coastal engineering with planning, economics, and resilience strategy development. They will also lead, manage, mentor, and/or supervise multi-disciplinary design and engineering teams, foster teamwork and inclusion, and share knowledge and expertise with more junior staff. A Bachelor’s degree or higher in coastal engineering or a closely related discipline and a Professional Engineers license in California, Washington, and/or Oregon are required.

Requirements

Professionally licensed engineer
15+ years of experience leading coastal engineering projects
Expertise in nature-based solutions, coastal resilience planning, coastal hazards analysis (waves, runup, erosion, and flooding) as well as flood management along the U.S. Pacific Coast and beyond.
Experience leading and managing complex coastal engineering projects from concept through construction, including coastal hazards and vulnerability assessments, engineering evaluations, and erosion/flooding studies, technical reports, design plan sets, specifications, cost estimates (PS&E packages), construction schedules, and/or construction support.
Adept in the engineering steps required to move projects from concept to construction bid package, including coordination with multidisciplinary teams such as geotechnical, structural, and hydraulic engineers as well as coastal planners and landscape architects.
Experience providing senior engineer review and oversight on large-scale coastal engineering projects, with an emphasis on Living Shorelines, nature-based solutions and multi-benefit flood and erosion protection.
Experience integrating coastal engineering with planning, economics, and resilience strategy development.
Experience leading, managing, mentoring, and/or supervising multi-disciplinary design and engineering teams including delegating and guiding engineers through simple to complex tasks.
Effective communicator who fosters teamwork and inclusion, and shares knowledge and expertise with more junior staff through mentoring and direct supervision.
Bachelor’s degree or higher in coastal engineering or a closely related discipline
Professional Engineers license in California, Washington, and/or Oregon.

Responsibilities

Contribute to annual and long-term strategic planning for our coastal engineering and coastal resilience practice.
Cultivate best practices, facilitate knowledge sharing and technical training, mentor and manage more junior staff.
Develop and oversee implementation of engineering QA/QC protocols specific to coastal engineering and analysis.
Help manage workflow and workplans and make staffing and recruitment recommendations.
Identify opportunities, track markets and clients and lead strategy to link and leverage resilience/sea level rise planning with ESA’s coastal sciences and engineering expertise.
Leverage ESA’s multi-disciplinary practices across regions to help connect, integrate, drive and expand our teams’ demonstrated capabilities in coastal hazards analysis, coastal resilience planning, and sea level rise adaptation firmwide.
Collaborate with other engineers, coastal planners, hydrologists, geomorphologists, landscape architects, ecologists, biologists, economists, and other specialists in advancing coastal engineering, resilience planning and habitat restoration approaches and other project solutions from concept to implementation.
Plan, design and/or manage a wide array of important, challenging and exciting projects – leading efforts from coastal risk assessment through implementation – including coastal hazards assessments (such as wave runup, flooding, and erosion), sea level rise vulnerability analyses, adaptation planning, Living Shorelines design, ecosystem restoration, climate change resilience/sea level rise adaptation, fisheries habitat enhancement, and engineering with nature.
Manage multiple responsibilities and deadlines, while working on a team or independently.