Remote Senior Program Controls Leader - Cost & Schedule

JLL; New York (NY); Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) plan with matching company

Medical, Dental & Vision Care

Paid parental leave

Paid Time Off

Daily Pay early access to wages

Job summary

JLL seeks a Program Controls Lead to provide enterprise-wide governance for cost controls, estimating, scheduling, and forecasting within the COE. You will lead the Cost Controls and Scheduling teams, establish standards, and deliver data-driven insights to support capital planning and program delivery.

In this senior role, you will partner with Project Delivery, PMO and client stakeholders, drive continuous improvement, and mentor a growing team while balancing risk and accountability across

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Architecture, Finance, Business, or related field.
• 10+ years of experience in construction cost controls, estimating, scheduling, or program controls leadership.
• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary controls or program management teams.
• Strong understanding of integrated cost and schedule controls methodologies.
• Experience with capital planning, forecasting, or enterprise program controls environments preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own program-wide controls governance frameworks across estimating, scheduling, forecasting, and reporting.
• Establish integrated controls standards, methodologies, and performance expectations across the portfolio.
• Ensure alignment between cost, schedule, scope, and delivery assumptions at all major program milestones.
• Provide leadership oversight for estimating rigor, schedule integrity, forecasting accuracy, and controls consistency.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for program controls risks, variances, recovery concerns, and confidence gaps.
• Drive accountability for timely, defensible, and data-driven controls outputs.
• Lead program estimating functions across scoping, engineered drawing, and final pricing phases.
• Ensure consistent application of estimating assumptions, exclusions, qualifications, and risk documentation.
• Oversee development and validation of scoping budgets, engineered drawing budgets, and final pricing estimates.
• Support bid review processes focused on pricing reasonableness, scope completeness, and benchmarking consistency.
• Lead portfolio-level benchmarking initiatives, market intelligence tracking, and pricing trend analysis.
• Identify recurring cost drivers, scope gaps, and estimating accuracy trends to improve predictability.
• Support future-state change order benchmarking and unit pricing analysis initiatives.
• Lead program scheduling governance and standards across the portfolio.
• Establish consistent schedule development, milestone management, reporting, and forecasting practices.
• Ensure alignment between schedule assumptions, procurement strategy, delivery sequencing, and cost forecasts.
• Partner with Project Delivery and PMO teams to identify schedule risks, recovery opportunities, and resource impacts.
• Support integrated schedule analytics and portfolio reporting to improve program visibility and decision-making.
• Promote proactive planning disciplines to reduce reactive execution and improve throughput capacity.
• Lead portfolio-level forecasting and controls analytics efforts across cost and schedule performance.
• Develop standardized reporting and variance narratives for executive leadership and client stakeholders.
• Maintain program-level controls dashboards, assumption logs, and risk registers.
• Support long-range planning efforts through integrated controls insights and trend analysis.
• Contribute controls expertise to evolving capital planning and financial stewardship initiatives.
• Provide early warning indicators and scenario analysis to support strategic decision-making and recovery planning.
• Lead, mentor, and develop the Cost Controls and Scheduling teams.
• Establish performance expectations, workload prioritization, and quality standards across both functions.
• Create development pathways and succession planning for controls team members.
• Promote collaboration between Estimators, Schedulers, Design, PMO, Delivery teams.
• Ensure staffing models and resource allocation align with program priorities and workload demands.
• Lead controls process improvement initiatives focused on efficiency, consistency, and scalability.
• Support implementation of program controls innovation initiatives, analytics tools, and reporting enhancements.
• Identify opportunities to improve integration between systems, reporting structures, and benchmarking data.
• Partner with leadership to evaluate future-state controls capabilities, automation opportunities, and operational improvements.
• Support innovation initiatives tied to estimating processes, scheduling methodologies, and portfolio analytics.
• Partner closely with Project Delivery, PMO, Design Enablement, and Innovation teams.
• Align controls processes with constructability, delivery strategy, and program execution priorities.
• Support enterprise reporting alignment and operational governance across the COE.
• Serve as a strategic partner to the COE Lead on controls operations, staffing strategy, and program performance.

Skills

Leadership

Analytical thinking

Stakeholder management

Communication

Data-driven decision making

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Architecture, Finance, Business, or related field

Tools

CostX

RSMeans

Primavera P6

Microsoft Project

Bluebeam

PlanSwift

Job description

JLL seeks a Program Controls Lead to provide enterprise-wide governance for cost controls, estimating, scheduling, and forecasting within the COE. You will lead the Cost Controls and Scheduling teams, establish standards, and deliver data-driven insights to support capital planning and program delivery.

In this senior role, you will partner with Project Delivery, PMO and client stakeholders, drive continuous improvement, and mentor a growing team while balancing risk and accountability across