Principal Highway Engineer - Road Infrastructure
AECOM Middle East Ltd
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Job summary
AECOM Middle East Ltd in Dubai seeks a Principal Highway Engineer to lead planning, design, and delivery of major highway projects across the UAE. You will coordinate multidisciplinary teams, guide complex design decisions, and ensure quality and compliance with regional standards.
The role requires senior leadership, 15+ years of highway experience, and strong stakeholder engagement with authorities and clients. Dubai-based, full-time position with opportunities to influence transport networks.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering or closely related field.
- Master's degree in a relevant field is advantageous.
- At least 15 years of professional highway engineering experience.
- Demonstrated involvement in UAE/GCC highway projects preferred.
- Chartered/Professional registration strongly preferred.
Responsibilities
- Lead highway and road design across expressways, arterial roads, and urban streets.
- Direct geometric design: horizontal/vertical alignment, cross-sections, junction geometry.
- Ensure compliance with regional and international design standards.
- Provide technical authority on safety, constructability, sustainability, and interfaces.
- Coordinate road designs with structures, drainage, traffic, utilities, and environment.
- Review calculations, drawings, models, and tender documentation.
- Develop feasibility studies, concept designs, and detailed design packages.
- Engage with clients, authorities, consultants, and project stakeholders.
- Mentor junior engineers and strengthen technical capability.
- Support proposals, presentations, and business development activities.
Skills
Education
Tools
Job description
Job Snapshot Role: Principal Highway Engineer - Road Infrastructure Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates Industry: Civil Engineering Function: Civil & Structural Engineering Experience: Minimum 15 years of relevant highway engineering experience Job Type: Full-time
Position Overview: Principal Highway Engineer - Road Infrastructure in Dubai, United Arab Emirates is a senior Civil Engineering opportunity for an experienced professional leading the planning, design, coordination, and delivery of major highway and transportation infrastructure projects. AECOM is hiring a technically accomplished highway engineer to guide multidisciplinary design teams, resolve complex engineering challenges, strengthen client relationships, and deliver expressways, urban roads, interchanges, junction improvements, and active mobility schemes across the UAE and wider Middle East.
Country: United Arab Emirates City: Dubai Industry: Civil Engineering Function: Civil & Structural Engineering Salary: 30000-45000 Estimated salary range based on similar jobs in the job city; please confirm the final offer with the employer. Gender: Any Candidate Nationality: Any Job Type: Full-time
The Principal Highway Engineer provides senior technical direction across complex transportation assignments, ensuring highway designs are safe, practical, sustainable, compliant, and ready for successful construction. The position combines advanced road engineering expertise with project leadership, multidisciplinary coordination, client engagement, quality assurance, and team development. By guiding critical design decisions and integrating inputs from structures, drainage, traffic, utilities, and environmental specialists, the role directly influences project performance, infrastructure resilience, and long-term transport efficiency.
- Lead highway and road design assignments covering expressways, arterial roads, urban streets, interchanges, junction upgrades, and active mobility corridors.
- Direct geometric design activities including horizontal alignment, vertical profiles, cross-sections, junction geometry, and associated roadway components.
- Ensure engineering solutions comply with applicable RTA, DM, ADM, AASHTO, DMRB, and other relevant regional and international standards.
- Provide technical authority on complex highway design matters involving safety, constructability, sustainability, operational performance, and multidisciplinary interfaces.
- Coordinate road designs with structures, drainage, utilities, traffic engineering, environmental, landscape, and other project disciplines.
- Review engineering calculations, drawings, models, specifications, reports, and design deliverables before formal submission.
- Develop and assess feasibility studies, concept designs, detailed design packages, technical reports, and tender documentation.
- Participate in technical discussions and project meetings with clients, government authorities, consultants, and project stakeholders.
- Provide specialist engineering advice to organizations including regional transport and municipal authorities.
- Guide project teams in resolving design conflicts, interface issues, geometric constraints, and construction-related challenges.
- Support project planning by contributing to resource forecasting, workload allocation, technical schedules, and delivery priorities.
- Maintain engineering quality through structured reviews, design checks, interdisciplinary coordination, and compliance monitoring.
- Mentor junior and intermediate engineers, strengthening technical capability and sharing specialist highway design knowledge across the team.
- Contribute to proposal development, technical presentations, bid submissions, and transportation-sector business development activities.
- Build productive client relationships by providing dependable technical advice and maintaining strong professional communication throughout project delivery.
- Bachelor 's degree in Civil Engineering or a closely related engineering discipline.
- Master 's degree in a relevant field is advantageous.
- At least 15 years of professional experience in highway engineering, road design, or major transportation infrastructure delivery.
- Demonstrated involvement in significant UAE or GCC highway and road projects is highly desirable.
- Chartered Engineer, Professional Engineer, or equivalent internationally recognized professional registration is strongly preferred.
- Proven ability to lead multidisciplinary engineering teams through complex design and delivery stages.
- Advanced knowledge of highway geometric design and transportation infrastructure engineering.
- Strong working understanding of RTA, DM, ADM, AASHTO, DMRB, and other applicable road design requirements.
- Experience addressing road safety, sustainable transport, constructability, and infrastructure interface considerations.
- Ability to review sophisticated engineering designs and provide clear technical direction to project teams.
- Strong technical report writing and presentation capability.
- Confident stakeholder management skills for working with clients, authorities, consultants, and contractors.
- Comfortable operating within a multidisciplinary consultancy environment handling multiple priorities and demanding project schedules.
- Able to coach developing engineers while maintaining accountability for technical standards and design quality.
- Highway engineering
- Road infrastructure design
- Geometric highway design
- Horizontal alignment design
- Vertical alignment design
- Road cross-section development
- Expressway design
- Urban road design
- Interchange design
- Junction improvement design
- Active mobility infrastructure
- Road safety engineering
- AASHTO standards
- AASHTO Green Book
- DMRB standards
- RTA design standards
- Dubai Municipality standards
- ADM requirements
- OpenRoads Designer
- Autodesk Civil 3D
- Autodesk InfraWorks
- Digital engineering delivery
- Multidisciplinary design coordination
- Technical design review
- Feasibility studies
- Tender documentation
- Engineering specifications
- Quality assurance
- Project resource planning
- Client technical coordination
- Engineering team leadership
This position offers experienced highway professionals the opportunity to influence major transportation programs within one of the Middle East 's most active infrastructure markets. The scale and technical complexity of projects in Dubai and across the region provide continued exposure to advanced road design, digital engineering, sustainable mobility, and multidisciplinary infrastructure delivery. Senior engineers can expand both technical and leadership capabilities while mentoring emerging talent, engaging directly with major authorities, and contributing to projects that shape future transport networks.
AECOM is a global infrastructure consulting firm delivering engineering, planning, design, program management, and construction management services across transportation, buildings, water, energy, and environmental sectors. Its multidisciplinary teams support public and private clients in developing resilient, sustainable, and technically advanced infrastructure from early planning through design and project delivery.
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