Senior Manager, Planning & Scheduling

Keel Infrastructure•Pittsburgh, PA

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Manager, Planning & Scheduling is the developer and owner of the scheduling function at Keel Infrastructure. The role stands up centralized schedule management as a service to the business — building the methodology, standards, data, and tooling from the ground up, then running that service across the portfolio. This is a hands-on delivery role for someone who has personally driven projects to completion and wants to build the function, not inherit it.

Requirements

10+ years of scheduling and project controls experience on large capital construction programs, with demonstrable hands-on project delivery — not reporting-only experience.
Direct experience building or substantially rebuilding a scheduling function, including the processes, standards, tooling, and data behind it.
Proven experience developing concept and preconstruction-stage schedules that inform real capital and site selection decisions.
Experience managing schedules through the full delivery lifecycle to commissioning and turnover, with personal accountability for milestone delivery.
Track record building or using historical schedule databases and benchmark data to set and defend duration assumptions.
Data center, mission-critical, hyperscale, HPC, heavy industrial, or utility-scale project experience strongly preferred; owner, developer, or program management side preferred.
Expert-level Primavera P6, including enterprise/EPS configuration, multi-project structures, global change, and baseline management; Microsoft Project and Smartsheet preferred.
Deep command of CPM scheduling theory: logic, float, calendars, constraints, critical and near-critical path analysis, and schedule compression techniques.
Working knowledge of earned value management, time impact analysis, and quantitative schedule risk analysis (Monte Carlo).
Data structuring and analytics capability — Power BI, SQL, or equivalent — sufficient to build and query a benchmarking database.
Understanding data center design and construction: electrical distribution, power systems, mechanical cooling, structural and civil packages, and utility interconnection sequencing.
Builder's mindset — comfortable operating with no existing framework and creating the standard rather than applying someone else's.
Drives accountability across internal and external teams without formal authority.
Highly analytical, with the judgment to distinguish reporting noise from real schedule risk.
Clear written and verbal communication; able to make a complex schedule understandable to non-schedulers.
Bachelor's degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Architecture, or a related field.

Nice To Haves

Microsoft Project and Smartsheet preferred.
Professional certifications related to role are preferred.

Responsibilities

Establish and own the centralized scheduling function for Keel Infrastructure, defining its scope, service model, and interface with development, project management, project controls, procurement, and finance.
Set up and manage the plan of record for every project in the portfolio, maintaining schedules centrally rather than leaving them distributed across contractors and project teams.
Build the scheduling toolset and environment — enterprise structure, EPS/WBS hierarchy, coding dictionaries, calendars, layouts, and security — so schedules roll up cleanly from activity to portfolio level.
Own execution planning alongside scheduling — define the work breakdown and packaging strategy, delivery sequencing logic, and phasing approach for each project before logic is built, so the schedule reflects a deliberate plan rather than a transcription of contractor intent.
Maintain the multi-year portfolio delivery plan, sequencing projects against capital availability, resource capacity, and utility timing so development and finance plan against a single roadmap.
Develop concept and feasibility-stage schedules for prospective sites, translating limited early information into credible, benchmark-backed duration and milestone assumptions.
Model entitlement, permitting, utility interconnection, and power energization paths at concept stage, and quantify their impact on ready-for-service dates.
Support site selection, capital planning, and investment approval with schedule scenarios, comparative site timelines, and sensitivity analysis.
Own the integrated master schedule through design, procurement, construction, commissioning, and operational turnover, maintaining continuity from the concept-stage baseline.
Integrate contractor, vendor, A&E, utility, and long-lead equipment schedules into a single program plan, resolving interface conflicts across packages.
Align the schedule to the commissioning plan and L0–L5 requirements to protect handover dates.
Author and roll out the scheduling processes, procedures, and templates used across the portfolio — baseline approval, update cycles, progress measurement, change control, and quality gates.
Define schedule specification requirements for contractor and consultant agreements, then review submissions against those requirements and reject non-conforming schedules.
Apply structured schedule quality checks (DCMA 14-point or equivalent) as a gate on every baseline and update.
Build and own the historical schedule database and WBS structure, capturing actual durations, sequences, productivity rates, and milestone performance from every completed and in-flight project.
Develop the benchmark set that underpins concept-stage planning: standard durations by scope and package, typical critical path shapes, and realistic ranges rather than single-point assumptions.
Maintain reference and template schedules for standard data center product types so new projects start from proven logic instead of a blank page.
Own progress measurement across the portfolio: define rules of credit, physical percent complete methodologies, and earned progress curves by package and discipline.
Produce and interpret performance metrics — SPI, float consumption, critical path movement, milestone slippage, and installation rates — and convert them into recovery recommendations.
Validate contractor-reported progress against field verification, installed quantities, and commissioning readiness rather than accepting reported percentages at face value.
Maintain schedule risk registers and run quantitative schedule risk analysis to size contingency and test milestone confidence levels.
Assess time impact of change orders, RFIs, design revisions, weather, and utility delays; prepare and review time impact analyses and support delay claim evaluation.
Enforce schedule change governance so every revision to the plan of record is documented, justified, and traceable.
Produce portfolio-level schedule dashboards and narrative reporting for project leadership and senior executives.