Senior Construction Project Leader

If you think your skills, experience and aspirations make you a good match for this position, we encourage you to apply. 

 

ABOUT THE ROLE

The successful candidate will perform in a Sr. Construction Project Leader role, initially focused on  a single mega project, for the duration of its delivery. You may have been educated and/or trained as a design professional, but the core of your career has been spent leading construction — as a construction manager, preconstruction lead, or design manager for a builder — and you bring that experience back to the design table fluent in both languages. 

You will lead CannonDesign's preconstruction and construction-phase leadership on one of the firm's largest and most complex projects, where the proactive integration of design and construction expertise is imperative.  This is not a document administration role but rather a process leadership role. You will be engaged during design with our team and the client’s construction manager and/or builder — evaluating the implementation of constructability, cost, and schedule activities, and positioning our team to succeed inside whichever delivery model the project carries, from traditional design-bid-build through fully integrated project delivery. Once construction begins, you are the firm's senior voice in the field: protecting technical and design intent, protecting our commercial position, while astutely collaborating with the client’s construction manager and/or builder, and giving the client a leader who can sit across from their builder as a peer.

REPORTING STRUCTURE

This position reports jointly to the CannonDesign Project Director for the assigned project and to the Executive Director of Operations - AEI. The Project Director sets day-to-day priorities, project staffing, and client engagement. The Executive Director of Operations owns standards of practice, performance evaluation, professional development, and the transfer of lessons learned across the firm's mega project portfolio.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL DO

Preconstruction and Delivery Readiness

• Join the project during design and in coordination with Project Technical Director, build the construction point of view into the documents before they are issued — construct ability, sequencing, phasing, site logistics, and trade availability.
• Lead internal construct-ability and coordination reviews at each design milestone, translating findings into actionable direction for the design team rather than a list of comments.
• Lead value engineering and target value design discussions, so scope decisions are made with cost consequences understood early rather than discovered late.
• Interrogate the schedule — CPM logic, long-lead procurement, permitting and regulatory approvals, trade partner onboarding, equipment procurement, commissioning and activation — and align the design delivery schedule to it.
• On integrated and progressive delivery models, participate in validation, target cost development, cluster team leadership, and the collaborative routines the multi-party agreement requires.
• Advise the Project Director on delivery model implications, bid packaging, early work packages, and what can safely be deferred, delegated, or carried as allowance.
• Support GMP development, bridging documents, and design-assist scopes where the project's delivery model requires them.
• Contribute to contractor pre-qualification, bid evaluation, risk assessment, and award recommendations.

Design Management Across the Construction Interface

• Serve as the translator between design and construction — anticipating where a builder will push, where a trade partner will substitute, and where the documents will not hold up.
• Lead resolution of interdisciplinary conflict where architecture, structure, MEP, technology, medical equipment, and specialty consultants collide, and drive it to a decision rather than a coordination meeting.
• Manage delegated design, design assist, deferred submittal packages, and trade partner design integration ensuring performance criteria are explicit and the responsibility boundary is documented.
• Guide the design team through cost and schedule pressure without eroding design quality or the firm's standard of care.
• Partner with the Project Director, Design Leaders, and discipline leaders so that construct-ability input strengthens the design rather than arriving as a veto.

Construction Leadership

• Lead CannonDesign's construction-phase services on the assigned project — the CA team, field presence, quality program, and the firm's standing with the client and builder throughout construction.
• Lead firm participation in OAC, cost, scheduling, and pre-installation meetings; own the issues that cross discipline lines.
• Direct the resolution of field conditions, RFIs, substitutions, and change proposals with a bias toward early resolution and documented rationale.
• Review and take a position on contractor change proposals, schedule impacts, and payment applications; escalate with a recommendation, not only a question.
• Support pull-planning and Last Planner routines with the builder and trade partners and hold the design team to the commitments made in them.
• Own the project risk register through construction, driving proactive mitigation and keeping the Project Director and Operations ahead of exposure rather than behind it.
• Direct QA/QC site observation programs and hold the team to consistent documentation standards.
• Maintain substantial, and where contractually required continuous, presence at the construction site.
• Lead punch-list management, certification of substantial completion, final completion, and transition into the warranty period.

Commercial and Risk Management

• Advise the Project Director on contractual risk in the Owner-Architect agreement and on our position related to the construction contract.
• Lead change and claim avoidance — notice requirements, documentation discipline, and defensible records.
• Support fee planning and staffing plans for construction-phase scope and hold the team to the effort that was sold.
• In coordination with the Risk Management Leaders and Project Technical Director, provide input on disputes, schedule impact analysis, claims mitigation, and cost recovery when they arise.

Firm Contribution

• Report construction performance metrics and issues monthly to the Project Director, firm leadership, and client as required.
• Capture and transfer lessons learned from mega project delivery to Operations and the Technical Leadership Group, so the next project starts smarter.
• Contribute to the firm's construction administration standards and design-build initiative.
• Mentor CA leaders, project architects, and engineers assigned to the project team.

General

• Travel as required.
• Adhere to CannonDesign and construction site safety program requirements and work rules.
• Perform other assigned duties.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL NEED

• Bachelor's degree in Architecture, Engineering, or Construction Management or advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum of 15 years of progressive experience in the design and construction of large-scale, complex building projects.
• Progressive experience in a senior construction management role carrying direct accountability for cost, schedule, quality, and contractor performance. Experience limited to construction administration from the architect's chair will not meet this requirement.
• Healthcare, Science & Technology, Education, Aviation and other complex facility experience.
• Demonstrated leadership of at least one project of mega project scale and complexity — a single large facility, a multi-building program, or a phased campus delivery.
• Experience on highly interdisciplinary projects where architecture, structural, MEP, technology, medical equipment, and specialty consultants must be coordinated under schedule pressure.
• Working command of both traditional and alternative delivery — design-bid-build, CM at Risk, design-build, progressive design-build, design-assist, and IPD — including how design responsibility, risk, and compensation shift under each.
• Demonstrated experience inside integrated or collaborative delivery: co-location, shared risk and reward, target value design, cluster or cross-functional teams, and Lean planning methods such as pull planning and the Last Planner System.
• Fluency with AIA, ConsensusDocs, and DBIA contract families and how risk allocates across owner, designer, and builder.
• Strong command of cost, schedule, and estimating fundamentals — able to test an estimate, read a GMP, and challenge a schedule with authority.
• Experience with construction in occupied and operational healthcare facilities, including phasing, infection control, and interim life safety requirements.
• Experience with commissioning, systems turnover, and owner activation.
• Knowledge of building codes, accessibility standards, FGI Guidelines, and the authority having jurisdiction, state health department, and permitting review processes that govern healthcare construction.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the presence to hold a room of owners, builders, and designers.
• Proficiency with construction management platforms (Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud), Bluebeam, scheduling tools (Primavera P6, Microsoft Project), and Microsoft Office.

HERE'S WHAT WILL SET YOU APART

• CCM (CMAA), DBIA certification, PMP, or comparable professional certification.
• Experience on IPD projects governed by a multi-party agreement.
• Experience as a design manager inside a design-build entity, leading the design team from the builder's side of the table.
• Higher education, science and technology, or advanced manufacturing experience alongside healthcare.
• LEED accreditation, or experience delivering against high-performance energy and decarbonization targets.
• Experience standing up construction management standards, tools, or training within a firm or program.
• Experience on projects delivered across multiple jurisdictions.
• Professional business attire is required for client meetings. Examples of professional business attire include suits, ties, collared dress shirts, dresses, and skirts.
• Travel required.

 

 

 

As a condition of employment, all employees are expected to complete mandatory training, including compliance training, within required timeframes and adhere to our internal policies and our Code of Conduct.

 

CannonDesign is an Equal Opportunity Employer. CannonDesign is committed to maintaining a work environment that is free from any and all forms of unlawful discrimination and harassment. It is therefore the firm’s policy to prohibit discrimination and harassment against any applicant, CannonDesign employee, vendor, contractor, or client on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, pregnancy, veteran status, genetic information, citizenship status, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law. It is also CannonDesign’s policy to prohibit any and all forms of retaliation against any individual who has complained of harassing or discriminatory conduct, or participated in a firm or agency investigation into such complaints.