Senior Manager - Geotechnical

Parsons; Riyadh; On-site; SAR 48,000 - 68,000; Full time

Job summary

Parsons is seeking a Senior Manager – Geotechnical in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The role leads technical assurance, ground investigation strategy, geotechnical design, construction support, and risk governance for major rail and transportation programs.

You will manage consultants and contractors to deliver safe, compliant, and technically robust ground engineering solutions aligned with employer requirements and rail standards.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required in Geotechnical or Civil Engineering.
• Minimum 15 years of geotechnical engineering experience on major transportation/rail projects.
• Strong leadership and client-facing capabilities expected.

Responsibilities

• Act as the primary technical focal point for geotechnical matters across the rail program.
• Represent the client in technical workshops and design reviews.
• Lead ground investigation strategies and QA/QC for geotechnical deliverables.
• Coordinate interfaces with civil, structural, track, and utilities teams.
• Drive risk governance, safety by design, and technical approvals across projects.

Skills

Geotechnical engineering

Ground investigation

Leadership

Client facing

Risk management

Education

Bachelor's in Geotechnical/Civil Engineering

Job description

Job Snapshot

Senior Manager – Geotechnical

Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Industry: Transportation – Trucking – Railroad

Function: Geo‑technical

Experience: 15 years in geotechnical engineering for major transportation and rail projects

Job Type: Full‑time

Job Details

• Country: Saudi Arabia
• City: Riyadh
• Salary: 48,000 – 68,000 SAR (estimated; confirm with employer)
• Gender: Any
• Candidate Nationality: Any

Overview

The Senior Manager – Geotechnical is a client‑facing senior leadership role that oversees technical assurance, ground investigation strategy, geotechnical design, construction support, and risk governance across major rail and transportation infrastructure programmes. The focus is on ensuring consultants and contractors deliver safe, compliant, constructible, and technically robust ground engineering solutions aligned with employer requirements, rail standards, authority expectations, and program delivery objectives.

Role Context

The position provides program‑level technical leadership within a PMC contract covering rail, metro, light rail, heavy rail, and high‑speed infrastructure. Responsibilities include managing ground investigation quality, validating geotechnical design assumptions, coordinating interfaces with civil, structural, track, drainage, utilities, and rail systems teams, and reducing delivery exposure related to settlement, slope instability, groundwater, deep excavations, tunnels, foundations, and unexpected ground conditions.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as the primary technical focal point for geotechnical and ground engineering matters across the transportation and rail programme.
• Represent the client in technical workshops, design reviews, risk meetings, coordination sessions, authority discussions, and independent review forums.
• Interpret and communicate client requirements, design criteria, rail‑specific geotechnical standards, and ground engineering expectations to consultants, contractors, and delivery partners.
• Provide independent technical advice to client leadership on geotechnical risks, design issues, construction constraints, cost impact, schedule exposure, and safety implications.
• Lead the development and review of project‑wide ground investigation strategies tailored to major rail and transportation infrastructure assets.
• Review site investigation scopes, including borehole locations, in‑situ testing, sampling plans, laboratory testing, groundwater monitoring, instrumentation, and reporting requirements.
• Oversee ground investigation execution and reporting by consultants and contractors to ensure data quality, sufficient coverage, technical relevance, and usefulness for design and risk assessment.
• Maintain clear documentation of baseline ground conditions, geotechnical uncertainties, risk allowances, and potential unforeseen ground conditions.
• Manage geotechnical design across all project stages for rail embankments, cuttings, formations, subgrades, bridges, viaducts, stations, depots, masts, noise barriers, tunnels, shafts, cut‑and‑cover structures, deep excavations, retaining walls, foundations, ground improvement, slope stabilization, and ground‑structure interaction.
• Review geotechnical design reports, analysis models, calculations, drawings, technical notes, monitoring proposals, and design assumptions for compliance with employer requirements, local codes, rail standards, authority regulations, and international best practices.
• Chair or participate in geotechnical design reviews, peer reviews, value‑engineering workshops, and constructability sessions.
• Promote safe, durable, practical, and cost‑effective geotechnical solutions while maintaining technical integrity and client interests.
• Ensure geotechnical and earthworks requirements are captured, traced, verified, validated, and closed out through structured requirements‑management processes.
• Oversee technical assurance for geotechnical deliverables, including independent checks, verification activities, design review records, and formal technical approvals.
• Coordinate geotechnical interfaces with civil design, structural design, foundations, abutments, retaining structures, tunnels, track alignment, formation levels, trackbed design, settlement criteria, drainage, utilities, highways, stations, depots, buildings, and adjacent developments.
• Maintain interface registers for geotechnical matters and ensure early identification, escalation, and resolution of cross‑discipline and cross‑contract issues.
• Support multidisciplinary coordination so ground conditions, settlement limits, excavation risks, groundwater behaviour, and geotechnical constraints are properly reflected in wider engineering decisions.
• Embed safety‑by‑design principles into temporary and permanent geotechnical solutions.
• Review geotechnical contributions to RAMS, hazard identification, risk assessments, mitigation plans, safety evidence, and construction risk controls.
• Coordinate with safety, risk, assurance teams, independent safety assessors, regulators, and authorities where geotechnical risks may influence railway safety or approvals.
• Ensure geotechnical risks are captured in project risk registers with clear ownership, mitigation actions, monitoring strategies, and contingency planning.
• Oversee how geotechnical designs are translated into construction methods, temporary works, sequencing, excavation support, dewatering, and ground improvement activities.
• Review contractor temporary works designs, excavation support proposals, dewatering strategies, ground‑movement assessments, and construction method statements from a safety and technical perspective.
• Support client assessment of geotechnical design changes, technical deviations, value‑engineering proposals, claims, variations, and unexpected ground condition submissions.
• Provide senior geotechnical input on RFIs, non‑conformance reports, field changes, and construction‑stage technical queries.
• Drive timely and safe resolution of unexpected ground conditions while protecting schedule, cost, safety, and client interests.
• Monitor critical geotechnical works through settlement markers, inclinometers, piezometers, groundwater readings, instrumentation data, monitoring reports, and contractor performance records.
• Track progress of ground investigations, geotechnical design, approvals, and critical construction activities against the integrated master schedule.
• Identify schedule‑critical geotechnical dependencies such as investigation completion, tunnel design inputs, major foundation approvals, rail formation readiness, and critical excavation works.
• Support project controls and commercial teams with technical assessment of geotechnical claims, variations, time impact, and cost exposure.
• Maintain and update geotechnical risk registers, including potential time and cost impacts, mitigation effectiveness, and escalation requirements.
• Prepare concise technical reports, risk updates, progress summaries, dashboards, and governance presentations for client leadership.
• Coordinate with internal client stakeholders including engineering, safety, operations, maintenance, environmental, legal, commercial, and project controls teams.
• Interface with regulators, building authorities, rail authorities, utility owners, highway agencies, adjacent property owners, and third parties where ground movements or geotechnical works may affect external assets.
• Support stakeholder communication where geotechnical risks, monitoring requirements, excavation methods, settlement effects, or construction activities may create public or third‑party concern.
• Lead and mentor geotechnical engineers and related specialists within the PMC team.
• Provide technical guidance to broader engineering teams on ground investigation, geotechnical design, construction support, and risk mitigation.
• Promote a culture of safety, technical excellence, proactive risk management, quality control, and evidence‑based decision‑making.
• Ensure QA and QC processes are applied to investigations, laboratory testing, geotechnical analysis, reporting, monitoring data, and construction records.
• Capture and share lessons learned from ground investigations, design reviews, temporary works, monitoring performance, and geotechnical construction support.

Ideal Profile

• Bachelor’s degree in Geotechnical Engineering, Civil Engineering with geotechnical specialization, or a closely related discipline.
• Master’s degree in Geotechnical Engineering, Soil Mechanics, Rock Mechanics, or a related field (highly preferred).
• Professional registration or chartership such as CEng, PE, P.Eng., or equivalent (highly desirable).
• Project management certification such as PMP, PRINCE2, or equivalent (advantage).
• Minimum 15 years of geotechnical engineering experience on major transportation, heavy rail, metro, light rail, high‑speed rail, or comparable infrastructure projects.
• Strong experience in PMC, client‑side, or major consultancy environments managing geotechnical elements of design and build contracts.
• Proven record leading ground investigations and geotechnical design for tunnels, deep excavations, bridges, viaducts, embankments, cuttings, foundations, retaining systems, and complex rail infrastructure.
• Demonstrable experience in geotechnical risk management, safety‑by‑design, technical assurance, and coordination with rail or transport regulators and authorities.
• Experience in challenging ground conditions such as soft soils, karst, high groundwater, seismic environments, brownfield sites, contaminated ground, or complex urban corridors (advantageous).
• Deep technical knowledge of soil mechanics, rock mechanics, ground investigation techniques, geotechnical analysis, design methods, and rail‑specific geotechnical criteria.
• Strong understanding of settlement control, track formation, slope stability, ground improvement, excavation support, groundwater control, and ground‑structure interaction.
• Good knowledge of engineering governance, design assurance, construction risk management, quality control, and safety requirements.
• Excellent planning and coordination skills in multi‑discipline, multi‑contractor project environments.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving ability with confidence in identifying, quantifying, communicating, and mitigating geotechnical risks.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex ground engineering matters to senior management and non‑technical stakeholders.
• High level of professionalism, integrity, technical judgement, and client‑service orientation.
• Proficiency with geotechnical and numerical analysis tools.
• Familiarity with BIM, common data environments, and document control systems (advantage).
• Fluency in written and spoken English (required); Arabic language ability preferred.

Skills Set

• Geotechnical engineering, ground engineering, transportation infrastructure, rail infrastructure, metro projects, heavy rail, light rail, high‑speed rail, PMC coordination, client representation, ground investigation strategy.
• Borehole planning, in‑situ testing, laboratory testing, groundwater monitoring, geotechnical baseline conditions, soil mechanics, rock mechanics, geotechnical design, rail embankments, cuttings, track formation, subgrade design, trackbed design, foundations, bridge foundations, viaduct foundations, station foundations, depot foundations, tunnels, shafts, cut‑and‑cover structures, deep excavations, retaining walls, ground improvement, slope stabilization, ground‑structure interaction, settlement analysis, slope stability, seismic effects, ground collapse risk, dewatering, excavation support, temporary works review, geotechnical monitoring.
• Settlement markers, inclinometers, piezometers, RAMS support, hazard identification, risk assessment, safety by design, technical assurance, independent checking, requirements management, verification and validation, interface registers, civil interface coordination, structural interface coordination, track interface coordination, drainage interface coordination, utilities coordination, RFI review, non‑conformance review, unexpected ground conditions, claims and variations assessment, geotechnical risk registers.
• BIM, common data environments, document control systems.

Benefits

The Senior Manager – Geotechnical role offers senior visibility across geotechnical design, ground investigation, construction support, safety‑by‑design, authority coordination, and risk governance. It is a strong fit for an experienced leader who wants to reduce ground‑related project risk, support safe rail infrastructure delivery, and contribute to future‑ready transport assets in Saudi Arabia.