Owner's Side Project Controls Lead — Pharma

The Spear Group; Lawrence Township (NJ); On-site; USD 90,000 - 135,000; Full time

Job summary

The Spear Group has an exciting opportunity for an experienced Owner's Side Project Controls Cost Engineer to manage cost engineering, forecasting, budgeting, and project controls across pharmaceutical capital projects in a hands-on owner’s representative role. You will collaborate with engineering, procurement, construction, and leadership to ensure cost performance and governance.

The ideal candidate will bring 3+ years of project controls experience in regulated manufacturing environments,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Engineering, Construction Management, or related discipline.
• 3+ years of project controls, cost engineering experience.
• Experience supporting owner-side capital projects preferably in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life sciences, semiconductor, food, or highly regulated manufacturing industries.

Responsibilities

• Develop, manage, and maintain project budgets, cost reports, forecasts, and cash flow projections.
• Establish project control systems for planning, cost tracking, change management, and performance reporting.
• Review and validate contractor cost estimates, change orders, and payment applications.
• Monitor project expenditures against approved budgets and identify cost risks and opportunities.
• Prepare monthly cost reports, executive dashboards, and KPI metrics for leadership.
• Support project authorization requests and capital appropriation documentation.
• Perform earned value analysis and trend forecasting.
• Manage project contingency and risk allowances.
• Coordinate with scheduling personnel to integrate schedule and cost performance.
• Support procurement by evaluating bid pricing and commercial proposals.
• Review contractor progress measurements for accuracy and completeness.
• Track commitments, invoices, accruals, and forecasted final costs.
• Facilitate project change control processes and maintain change logs.
• Participate in project risk assessments and quantitative cost risk analyses.
• Support project closeout, final reconciliation, and lessons learned documentation.
• Ensure compliance with internal governance, financial controls, and audit requirements.

Skills

Project controls

Cost engineering

Financial analysis

Budgeting and forecasting

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication

Earned value management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Engineering, Construction Management, or related discipline

Tools

Microsoft Project

SAP/Oracle ERP

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft PowerPoint

Cost estimating software

Earned Value Management tools

Job description

The Spear Group has an exciting opportunity for an experienced Owner's Side Project Controls Cost Engineer to manage cost engineering, forecasting, budgeting, and project controls across pharmaceutical capital projects in a hands-on owner’s representative role. You will collaborate with engineering, procurement, construction, and leadership to ensure cost performance and governance.

The ideal candidate will bring 3+ years of project controls experience in regulated manufacturing environments,