Senior Design Manager

Title: Senior Design Manager, A/E Services
Department: Construction | Location: Los Angeles, CA (on-site) | Type: Full-time |
Salary to post: $185,000 to $203,000 per year

The Work

LAUSD runs about a thousand campuses and most of them are decades old. The Maintenance and Operations branch keeps them standing and safe. That means seismic work, critical repairs, and retrofits on buildings full of students. As Senior Design Manager for A/E Services, you run the design side of that work and you lead the people who do it.

You manage and coordinate the District's design process so every set of plans stays inside the program, the budget, the environmental rules, and the law. You supervise a team of design professionals through design review. You carry several projects at once, working with architects, consultants, and District staff to finish each on schedule.

You choose the architecture firm best suited to each project, then give that firm clear and consistent direction on goals, standards, site, schedule, and budget. You run design review, you check that designs meet LAUSD's standards for both education and buildings, and you review design changes so projects stay on budget. You report on where planning and design stand and what needs a decision.

What You Will Own

• Seismic, critical repair, and retrofit projects, several at once
• A team of design professionals, and the design review process they run
• The District's design process for A&E Services, from first drawings to a set of plans the District can build from
• Choosing the architecture firm best suited to each project, based on what the firm can actually deliver
• Clear direction to architects on goals, standards, sites, schedules, and budgets
• Design review, so what gets built meets LAUSD standards and gives full value for the money budgeted
• Review of design changes, so projects stay within budget
• Status reporting on planning and design, with findings and recommendations

What You Bring

• 14 years of full-time paid professional experience managing facilities design, or planning and coordinating capital projects that included the overall design, contract administration, cost estimating, and scheduling
• 4 of those years on the design, planning, and construction of schools or similar public agencies
• A bachelor's degree in architecture or engineering (required for this role)
• Strong writing and speaking. This one is a stated requirement, not a nice extra
• Experience leading other design professionals, not just your own projects

Preferred

• A master's degree in architecture or engineering
• A current California Certificate of Registration as an Architect, or a Professional Engineer license
• Seismic retrofit and structural repair work on occupied buildings
• Experience with DSA, the state office that approves public school construction

Compensation

Salary range: $185,000 to $203,000 per year, based on experience.

Benefits: health, dental, and vision at low cost; 401k; three weeks of PTO; and an ESOP (employee stock ownership) at no cost to you, with a 3% Safe Harbor contribution vested on day one.

Why MAAS

MAAS has spent nearly 40 years earning the trust of 50+ educational institutions across California, managing over $10B in projects. That track record means the work here is stable, funded, and consequential. You are not chasing the next contract.

As a MAAS employee, you are also an owner. The company is 100% employee-owned through an ESOP, a retirement benefit provided at no cost to you, on top of your salary. MAAS is a profitable, well-run organization and our share price has more than doubled since the plan's inception, with continued growth year over year. Your ownership stake builds the longer you stay, and ESOP participants nationally tend to accumulate 2.5x more in retirement savings than employees at non-ESOP companies.

In an industry not known for prioritizing culture, 96% of MAAS employees say it is a great place to work, and 100% say people genuinely care about each other.