Principal Project Engineer

DTE Energy; Detroit (MI); On-site; USD 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player seeks a skilled engineering leader to manage large capital projects in a dynamic environment. This role involves overseeing project scopes, budgets, and engineering designs while ensuring compliance with safety and regulatory standards. You'll collaborate with various stakeholders to drive project success and advocate for project managers. This position requires a strong background in engineering and project management, along with excellent communication and analytical skills. Join a forward-thinking company where your expertise can make a significant impact on infrastructure development and customer satisfaction.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in engineering or project management.
• Bachelor's degree in engineering or related field required.

Responsibilities

• Manage engineering costs and project scope for capital projects.
• Provide engineering leadership and support project managers.

Skills

Project Management

Engineering Leadership

Analytical Skills

Communication Skills

Problem-Solving

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering Technology

Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management

Tools

Project Management Software

Job description

Manages the development of scope and designs in teams to support large capital projects across Enterprise. Responsible for managing one or more projects within the constraints of scope and quality, while supporting the project manager’s delivery on time, and cost to specified engineered requirements and meet customer satisfaction. Chairs regular update meetings to management on scope, budget, engineering costs, schedules, and estimates for engineering designs. Responsible for training new project engineers. This is an individual contributor job.

Key Accountabilities

• Provides engineering leadership to multiple intermediate-to-large sized capital projects and/or multiple small projects.
• Primary interface and liaison for the organization to address issues and primary interface to resolve engineering design problems across electrical distribution, transmission, power, generation, and/or gas.
• Manages engineering costs and project scope change control of engineering activities throughout the life cycle of a project.
• Manages the design development of projects from the Conceptual Phase prior to the project design phase through to the completion of installation, testing, and commissioning into service, which includes scope, budget, quality schedule controls, and on-time completion.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to ensure project is executed within scope while also developing contingency plans for planned outages during project construction.
• Support and advocate for project managers by incorporating design changes requested by various permitting bodies and teams. Ensures all project requirements and/or objectives are properly documented and vigorously pursued via regular reporting, forecasting final testing, reviews, and audits, thus implementing improvements in a timely manner.
• Manages communication and risk management planning, preliminary schedule development, scope development, and information distribution to secure engineering support compliance with safety, environmental and other regulatory requirements. Also provide certified drawings for permits.
• Supports development of design specifications and procurement of long-lead time or engineering design equipment and materials.
• Integrate project design and initial construction plans with Supply Chain, Vendors and Project Managers to ensure coordination between engineering, procurement, and construction.
• Collaborates with the project manager to ensure all engineering documentation is updated and accurate for all new construction and as-builds.

Minimum Education & Experience Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, engineering technology or construction management, and 8 years of experience in engineering, project management, or capital infrastructure projects.

Other Qualifications

Preferred

• Project and or outage management in a utility setting
• PMP/PMI certification from the Project Management Institute
• Professional Engineer (PE) License from the State of Michigan.

Other Requirements

• Proficient verbal (and nonverbal), written and presentation skills; communicates clearly, with credibility and confidence.
• Written and verbal communication and advocacy skills consistent with the ability to present results of projects and research to all levels of the business unit and engage in persuasive written and verbal interaction.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills consistent with the ability to identify key issues from a broad range of alternatives and recommend optimal solutions for various situations.
• Ability to develop/coordinate cross-functional work groups and projects, yielding optimal outcomes.
• Business and management acumen extending beyond the incumbent's specific job, enabling him to proffer valuable insights, recommendations or challenges to policies, procedures, and practices extending beyond the immediate scope of his job (this level of insight or expertise is typically not attained without several years of experience, regardless of the level of educational attainment).
• Broad understanding of power generation, transmission, distribution and regional power dispatch issues.
• Ability to work in a 'team' and/or 'matrix' structure, supporting multiple clients, procedures and policy.
• Ability to conduct efficacious meetings and manage the meeting process with optimal results.
• Copes with multiple demands from superiors and peers in a positive and even-handed fashion; displays a calm demeanor under pressure.
• Competent in multitasking (i.e., the ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks, issues or projects that may include high visibility initiatives and require innovation, teamwork and planning).

Additional Information

Incumbents may engage in all or some combination of the activities and accountabilities, and utilize a variety of the competencies cited in this description depending upon the organization and role to which they are assigned. This description is intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed by incumbents in this job. It is not intended as an all-inclusive list of accountabilities or responsibilities, nor is it intended to limit the rights of supervisors or management representatives to assign, direct and control the work of employees under their supervision.