Assistant Project Manager - Fire and Life Safety Engineering

WSP in the U.S.; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 89,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

WSP is seeking an Assistant Project Manager within the Fire & Life Safety specialty in the Houston area with flexible location options including Arlington, VA, and other cities. You will oversee project setup, scheduling, QA/QC, and client communications across high-profile projects, coordinating with engineers, architects and owners.

The role emphasizes collaboration, organizational excellence, and proactive stakeholder management while supporting pursuits and proposals.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, architecture, engineering, science, or a related major, or equivalent experience in a technical or consulting engineering firm.
• 3–5 years of relevant post-education project management experience.
• Experience in project planning, cost management, schedule management, and KPI analysis.

Responsibilities

• Set up projects and convert opportunities to billable jobs, coordinating with internal teams to deliver project numbers.
• Lead engineering teams to handle multiple projects concurrently.
• Develop and maintain project workplans with schedules and tasks, and follow up with stakeholders.
• Maintain regular client communications on status and schedules; coordinate actions and tasks.
• Track financial performance metrics and prepare summary reports for forecasting and invoicing.

Skills

Project management

Communication

Team leadership

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Tools

Microsoft Office

PowerBI

Bluebeam

Adobe InDesign

Illustrator

Photoshop

Acrobat

Microsoft Project

Visio

Job description

Job Description

This Opportunity

Who We Are

At WSP, we are driven by inspiring future-ready pioneers to innovate. We’re looking to grow our teams with people who are ready to collaborate in building communities and expanding our skylines. To do this, we hire candidates of all experiences, skillsets, backgrounds and walks of life. We actively foster a work environment and culture where inclusion and diversity is part of our fundamental structure. This is delivered behaviorally, through our policies, trainings, local partnerships with professional diverse organizations, internal networks and most importantly with the support and sponsorship of our leaders who help drive our commitment to an inclusive, diverse, welcoming and equitable work environment. Anything is within our reach and yours as a WSP employee. Come join us and help shape the future!

WSP is currently initiating a search for a Full-Time Assistant Project Manager within the Fire & Life Safety (FLS) Specialty Service group for our Houston, TX office. Other locations considered: Arlington, VA, Columbia, MD, Dallas, TX, New York, NY, and Boston, MA.

Be involved in projects with our Fire and Life Safety Team and be a part of a growing organization that meets our client’s objectives and solves their challenges.

WSP works closely with architects, owners and engineers from around the world on large, complex projects with a focus on user experience, operational efficiency, collaboration, and sustainability in the built environment. Our team works on high-quality, high-profile, national and international projects. You will actively participate in the full project cycle from creation of the opportunity to assistance with capturing the work, to project performance through to completed construction.

Your Impact

Project Delivery

• Conduct project setup using internal systems. Tasks include converting project opportunities to billable jobs, communicating with internal teams to deliver project numbers, and processing approved add-service requests.
• Manage engineering teams to complete multiple projects concurrently.
• Support the development and maintenance of project workplans, including schedules, tracking tasks, and following up with stakeholders.
• Maintain regular communication with clients regarding project status and schedules, and proactively coordinate client actions and tasks.
• Track financial performance metrics for projects, culminating in summary reports to enable forecasting and inform invoicing.
• Coordinate the QA/QC process for project deliverables and final submissions to clients.
• Create and manage project resource planning, ensuring alignment with project plans and staff utilization expectations.
• Establish effective communication methods and regular intervals to update staff on project performance in a timely manner.
• Assist with coordination of project correspondence, such as RFIs and submittal reviews, to ensure timely responses and proper filing of completed documents.

Project Pursuits

• Assemble technical resource information, scope, and pricing to create responses for Requests for
• Qualifications and Proposals.
• Log and track the progress of project opportunities.
• Create and maintain a proposal fee database to enable data-driven and historical fee input relevant to client and market trends for use in future proposals.
• Coordinate project and pursuit process improvements across the practice.

Culture And Personality

Candidates are expected to possess many of the following attributes:

• Highly organized with exceptional skills in tracking progress.
• Highly collaborative with a proactive approach to communications.
• Assist with onboarding to train new staff on project delivery and internal processes.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with an emphasis on the ability to organize and
• present requirements clearly.
• Ability to lead internal team meetings and participate in presentations.
• Resourceful self-starter capable of working productively on multiple projects simultaneously under strict deadlines.
• Interest in evolving trends in the built environment across various vertical markets (healthcare, commercial, science & technology, hospitality, cultural, etc.).

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, architecture, engineering, science, or a related major, or equivalent experience in a technical or consulting engineering firm.
• Minimum of 3- 5 years of relevant post-education experience in a project management role within a relevant industry or previous experience within the architectural engineering industry in a similar role.
• Experience in project planning, cost management, schedule management, and methods of analyzing and reporting project performance on financial and other relevant KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, PowerBI, Visio), Bluebeam, and Adobe software applications (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat).
• Ability to learn and become proficient with internal project management platforms.

Preferred Qualifications

• Project management certification (e.g., Project Management Professional (PMP)) or similar demonstrated experience is highly desired.

WSP Benefits

WSP provides a comprehensive suite of benefits focused on a providing health and financial stability throughout the employee’s career. These benefits include coverage related to medical, dental, vision, disability, and life; retirement savings; paid sick leave; paid vacation (or other personal time); paid parental leave; and paid time off for purposes of bereavement, voting, and/or attendance at naturalization proceedings.

Compensation

Expected Salary (all locations): $88,500 - $120,000

WSP USA is providing the compensation range that the company in good faith believes it might pay and offer for this position, based on the successful applicant’s education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities in addition to internal equity and specific geographic location. WSP USA reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer additional benefits and other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s sex or other status protected by local, state, and/or federal law.

About WSP

ABOUT US

WSP USA is the U.S. operating company of WSP, one of the world's leading engineering and professional services firms. Dedicated to serving local communities, we are engineers, planners, technical experts, strategic advisors and construction management professionals. WSP USA designs lasting solutions in the buildings, transportation, energy, water and environment markets. With more than 15,000 employees in over 300 offices across the U.S., we partner with our clients to help communities prosper.

www.wsp.com

WSP provides a flexible and agile workplace model while meeting client needs. Employees are also afforded a comprehensive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, disability, life, and retirement savings focused on providing health and financial stability throughout the employee’s career.

At WSP, we want to give our employees the challenges they seek to grow their careers and knowledge base. Your daily contributions to your team will be essential in meeting client objectives, goals and challenges. Are you ready to get started?

WSP USA (and all of its U.S. companies) is an Equal Opportunity Employer Race/Age/Color/Religion/Sex/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity/National Origin/Disability or Protected Veteran Status.

The selected candidate must be authorized to work in the United States.

Notice To Third Party Agencies

WSP does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters, employment agencies, or other staffing services. Unsolicited resumes include any resume or hiring document sent to WSP in the absence of a signed Service Agreement where WSP has expressly requested recruitment/staffing services specific to the position at hand. Any unsolicited resumes, including those submitted to hiring managers or other business leaders, will become the property of WSP and WSP will have the right to hire that candidate without reservation – no fee or other compensation will be owed or paid to the recruiter, employment agency, or other staffing service.