Lead Project Manager, Wastewater & Biosolids Operations

Synagro Open Positions; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 149,000 - 182,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

15 days paid time off

10 holidays

Medical/Dental/Vision (within 30 days)

Health Savings Account (HSA) with comp

Flexible Spending Account (FSA)

401(k) with company match, (fully vest

Career growth and promotional-opportun

Tuition Reimbursement

Bonus Incentive Program

Job summary

Synagro is seeking a Project Manager to lead operational improvement, capital, maintenance, transition, and compliance projects across wastewater and biosolids facilities. You will coordinate engineering, procurement, contractors, vendors, and customer representatives to deliver projects safely, on schedule, within budget, and with minimal disruption to ongoing operations.

The role requires strong project management skills, knowledge of wastewater processes, and experience coordinating

Qualifications

• Progressive project management experience in wastewater treatment, biosolids, water treatment, utilities, industrial processing, manufacturing, or a comparable operating environment.
• Demonstrated experience executing projects within active operating facilities where outages, construction, safety, and production activities must be coordinated.
• Experience managing project scope, schedules, budgets, contractors, change orders, commissioning, and operational handover.
• Working knowledge of process equipment such as pumps, piping, tanks, conveyors, dewatering equipment, electrical systems, instrumentation, and controls preferred.
• Experience with biosolids dewatering, drying, pelletizing, thermal processing, or material handling preferred.
• PMP, CAPM, Professional Engineer license, wastewater operator certification, or OSHA 30-hour training preferred.

Responsibilities

• Develop project charters defining scope, objectives, responsibilities, budget, schedule, assumptions, risks, and measures of success.
• Create and maintain project work plans, milestone schedules, action logs, risk registers, decision logs, cost forecasts, and status reports.
• Lead project kickoff, design review, construction readiness, progress, commissioning, handover, and closeout activities.
• Coordinate engineering, procurement, contractors, vendors, operations, maintenance, environmental, health and safety, and customer activities.
• Integrate project execution with continuous wastewater and biosolids operations, including equipment outages, shutdowns, temporary systems, tie-ins, bypass conditions, startup, and commissioning.
• Evaluate project impacts on process capacity, dewatering, sludge handling, drying and pelletizing, centrate or filtrate return, odor control, chemical systems, utilities, material handling, and facility reliability.
• Ensure operators and maintenance personnel participate in planning, design reviews, constructability reviews, and operational-readiness assessments.
• Establish and administer project budgets; track commitments, purchase orders, invoices, accruals, change orders, actual costs, and forecast at completion.
• Develop clear scopes of work; support competitive bidding, contractor selection, mobilization, scheduling, field execution, and performance management.
• Review proposed scope and cost changes, document the business and operational basis, and maintain disciplined change control.
• Identify and elevate safety, compliance, operational, commercial, schedule, and critical-path risks; implement mitigation and recovery plans.
• Develop startup and commissioning plans and verify completion of testing, training, spare parts, operating procedures, drawings, manuals, punch-list items, and required documentation before handover.
• Build collaborative relationships with facility teams, customers, contractors, and internal stakeholders and provide concise leadership-level updates.
• Conduct project closeout and lessons-learned reviews and incorporate improvements into future project planning and execution.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Skills

Project management

Scheduling

Budgeting

Risk assessment

Vendor coordination

Cross-functional teams

Communication

MS Office

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering, construction management, environmental science, operations management, business, or related discipline

Tools

Microsoft Office

Project planning tools

Job description

Synagro is seeking a Project Manager to lead operational improvement, capital, maintenance, transition, and compliance projects across wastewater and biosolids facilities. You will coordinate engineering, procurement, contractors, vendors, and customer representatives to deliver projects safely, on schedule, within budget, and with minimal disruption to ongoing operations.

The role requires strong project management skills, knowledge of wastewater processes, and experience coordinating