Project Manager, Aviation Architecture & Engineering

ABOUT THE JOB

Lead the terminals, hangars, and maintenance facilities that keep people and aircraft moving.

Our client is a multidisciplinary architecture and engineering firm that has spent decades building long relationships with the clients it serves, and it’s now part of a larger national engineering and design firm. Its planners, interior designers, engineers, and architects work side by side across public and private markets, from aviation and federal work to healthcare and education. Aviation is one of its established markets, led by its own sector principals.

You’ll run the biggest and most complicated aviation projects the firm takes on, from the first plan through construction: airport and airline work, terminals, hangars, maintenance and support facilities. You’re the client’s first call and the person holding budget, schedule, scope, and quality together across a team of architects, engineers, and consultants. When you get it right, a terminal opens on time for the people who’ll travel through it, a hangar keeps a fleet in the air, and the client comes back for the next project.

This seat also has a say in where the practice goes. You’ll work alongside the aviation sector principals to deepen client relationships and win what’s next, shaping pursuit strategy, scopes and fees, interviews, and presentations. And you’ll mentor the firm’s junior project managers.

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THE MANDATE

This seat isn’t for a project manager who tracks the schedule and leaves the client to someone else, or who sees the next pursuit as another department’s job. It isn’t for someone who manages alone and doesn’t bring others along.

It’s for someone who has spent years leading large, complicated A/E projects and the multidisciplinary teams behind them, and still wants to be the person the client calls first. The right person delivers the work, becomes a trusted advisor along the way, and makes the project managers around them better.

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KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Take the firm’s biggest and most complex aviation projects through every phase, and deliver them on budget, on schedule, in scope, and to standard
• Build a strategic plan for each project that lines up with the client’s goals and the aviation practice’s goals, and carry it out
• Be the client’s main point of contact: communicate early, serve them well, and earn the trust of everyone with a stake in the project
• Draft and negotiate the paperwork behind each job: contracts, consultant agreements, fee proposals, and scopes of work
• Lead the multidisciplinary team, coordinating consultants, in-house staff, and resources across aviation facilities and the infrastructure around them
• Watch schedule, budget, invoicing, profitability, risk, and quality on every project, get ahead of problems, and put a recovery plan in place when one is needed
• Keep firm leadership, the discipline directors, and the aviation sector principals current on status, priorities, and direction
• Oversee and mentor project managers earlier in their careers, along with project team members, and build a team that collaborates, owns its work, and keeps improving
• Act as a trusted advisor to clients, finding ways to add value all through delivery
• Work with the aviation sector principals to grow existing client relationships, spot the next project, and bring delivery insight into pursuit strategy
• Take a leading part in business development and pursuits: client presentations, interview prep, building scopes and fees, and proposal strategy and writing
• Take part in client meetings, interviews, presentations, and business development work, and lead them when asked, so clients keep coming back

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IDEAL PROFILE

• A bachelor’s or master’s in engineering, architecture, construction management, or a closely related field
• A professional license is preferred. Without one, you’ll need a PMP or an equivalent project management credential
• 15+ years leading multidisciplinary teams and complex design projects in architecture and engineering, including at least five years as a project manager
• Aviation design experience preferred: airports, airlines, terminals, hangars, maintenance and support facilities, or other aviation infrastructure
• A record of building long-term client relationships and keeping them
• Strong command of project management fundamentals: scheduling, budgeting, contracts, quality management, and resource planning
• A strong leader, communicator, negotiator, and presenter
• Experience in aviation business development and managing client accounts is preferred

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LOCATION & WORK MODEL

• Full-time and onsite at the firm’s office in Los Angeles, CA
• Expect travel for site visits, client meetings, airport coordination meetings, construction observation, industry conferences, and business development. How often depends on your projects.
• The work mixes long stretches at a desk and in meetings with time on active construction sites and in airport facilities: walking, stairs, standing for long periods, and occasionally carrying plans, documents, or materials weighing as much as 25 pounds

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COMPENSATION

• Salary: $155,000 to $190,000 a year. Where you land depends on things like education, experience, licensure, and skills.
• Eligible for benefits that may include vision, dental, and medical coverage, a retirement plan, paid holidays, and paid time off

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ABOUT THIS SEARCH

This search is being conducted by Signal & Strand, a boutique recruiting and people operations firm headquartered in Long Beach, CA with national and international reach, on behalf of our client. The company’s name will be shared with candidates as the conversation moves forward. All inquiries are held in confidence.

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