Senior Project Manager – Transit Permitting Strategy
About The Position
Cordoba Corporation is seeking a Senior Project Manager to support major transit clients in improving capital project delivery through permitting process improvement, regulatory strategy, lifecycle cost assessment, and owner/agency governance analysis. This role will also manage all project staff, scope, schedule, budget, and subconsultants. The role includes client communications and management, including identifying opportunities for new business. The ideal candidate will possess skills and experience with a variety of transportation projects, including roadway, civil, transit, utilities, and active transportation with local stakeholders, municipalities, federal, county, state, and transit clients. Permit and Regulatory Process Leadership This position will play a key role in improving transportation project delivery by strengthening permitting, regulatory coordination, and agency approval processes. The Senior Transportation Project Manager will develop permitting strategies, manage agency coordination, track approval milestones, identify regulatory and stakeholder risks, and work across engineering, environmental, utility, right-of-way, construction, and client teams to resolve issues that could affect scope, schedule, budget, or quality. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience improving approval workflows, reducing permitting-related delays, and helping public-sector transportation clients move complex infrastructure projects through required reviews and approvals.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering, planning, architecture, environmental science, public administration, construction management, law, urban planning, or a related field.
- 10+ years’ experience in transportation, transit, public infrastructure, permitting, regulatory strategy, capital delivery, program management, building department operations, or related consulting services.
- Knowledge of overall public sector capital programs
- Experience leading multidisciplinary teams through complex project approval processes responsible for permitting, environmental compliance, utility coordination, or regulatory approvals
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office, Excel, PowerPoint, and project management/reporting tools
- Demonstrated knowledge and history of project management, including project metrics
- Principles of supervision, training, and performance evaluation
- Excellent verbal, graphical, and written communication skills with a variety of people and personalities
Nice To Haves
- PE, AICP, PMP, JD, or similar credential preferred, but not required.
- Prior experience with Sound Transit, WA transit agencies, Puget Sound jurisdictions, or high-capacity transit projects is highly desirable.
- Experience with transit, rail, bus rapid transit, transportation facilities, stations, operations and maintenance facilities, or other major public infrastructure programs.
- Experience working with or for a public owner, transit agency, city/county permitting department, building department, regulatory agency, or capital program management organization.
- Demonstrated understanding of land use approvals, building permits, technical permits, environmental permits, agency reviews, permit conditions, inspections, and construction-phase compliance.
- Experience evaluating permitting processes, approval workflows, jurisdictional responsibilities, or agency governance models.
- Familiarity with environmental permitting, regulatory coordination, mitigation commitments, permit condition tracking, and construction-phase compliance.
- Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills with the ability to comunicate complex permitting, regulatory, technical, and organizational issues into clear recommendations for executive, board, and client decision-makers.
- Excellent facilitation, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
- Experience managing multidisciplinary teams and coordinating across engineering, environmental, legal, real estate, right-of-way, utilities, construction, operations, safety, and public agency stakeholders.
- Knowledge of federal, state, and local permitting and environmental review processes applicable to major infrastructure projects is strongly preferred.
Responsibilities
- Leads permitting and regulatory coordination strategies for transportation projects involving federal, local, county, state, transit, utility, environmental, and right-of-way stakeholders.
- Identifies permitting, regulatory, utility, right-of-way, environmental, and stakeholder approval risks early in the project lifecycle and develops mitigation strategies with project teams and clients.
- Develops and manages permit matrices, agency coordination plans, approval schedules, responsibility assignments, and escalation strategies to support timely project delivery.
- Facilitates coordination with agencies such as state agencies, local municipalities, counties, transit agencies, utility owners, environmental/resource agencies, and other authorities having jurisdiction.
- Reviews project delivery workflows and recommends improvements to permitting, submittal, review, comment resolution, and approval processes.
- Leads cross-functional coordination among engineering, planning, environmental, utilities, right-of-way, construction management, and client teams to resolve approval barriers.
- Establishes metrics, dashboards, or tracking tools to monitor permit status, agency review cycles, comment resolution, commitments, and critical-path approvals.
- Supports proposal strategy by identifying regulatory, permitting, stakeholder, and approval-process risks and developing delivery approaches that improve client confidence.
- Provides project delivery oversight and accountability for assigned projects with a high degree of proficiency.
- Effectively communicates project and technical approach to solving challenges.
- Participates in proposals and interviews as a technical leader.
- Provides ongoing mentoring, training, and support of internal technical team members.
- Maintains client and industry contacts and engages in professional industry organizations.
- Engages in recruiting and retention activities.
- Maintains a positive working relationship with all levels of the organization.
- Performs other duties as assigned.
Benefits
- Multiple medical and dental insurance plans
- Vision insurance
- Paid AD&D and life insurance
- 401k with an industry leading employer match
- Generous vacation and sick leave accruals
- 9 paid holidays
- Other forms of paid time off
- Flexible spending accounts (FSA’s) including medical care reimbursement, dependent care reimbursement, and commuter benefit plans
- Employee assistance program
- Well-being benefits that include stress management, nutrition, and financial well-being
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
