Senior DCE Project Controls Lead — Cost, Schedule & Risk

Flexential; United States; Hybrid; USD 135,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental & Vision

401(k)

HSA & FSA

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

PTO

Job summary

Flexential is seeking a senior project controls leader to oversee cost tracking, budgeting, and reporting across multiple live builds and data center projects. The role emphasizes cost control, schedule integration, and rigorous subcontract and LOE management in a hybrid work model.

The candidate will manage CPM-based planning, EV metrics, and multi-project forecasting while ensuring compliance with GMP-like controls and formal change management processes. Strong field presence is required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a relevant field.
• 5–8 years of experience in project controls, cost engineering, or construction accounting on heavy industrial or utility-scale projects.
• 2–3 years on mission-critical or data center construction projects with heavy MEP cost profiles.

Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain project controls reporting frameworks, financial tracking standards, and performance metrics to ensure consistent portfolio-level visibility and decision support.
• Maintain active site sub-ledgers and execute daily cost-code accounting using MasterFormat/Uniformat standards, ensuring all field commitments are logged accurately.
• Review, verify, and process monthly progress billings and pay applications from the General Contractor, cross-referencing all billings against site work-in-place verification.
• Collect, audit, and log lien waivers from all sub-tier trades to eliminate financial, legal, and title risks.
• Monitor delivery timelines, tax exemptions, and milestone payments for OFE once items transition to the field.
• Isolate, track, and bookkeep distinct budgets for large operational repair or retrofit builds to prevent cost blending with standard budgets.
• Command the change order defense process; review Subcontractor Change Orders for entitlement.
• Verify contractor material quantities and labor rates against baselines and labor indexes.
• Execute rapid quantity takeoffs for field variations to negotiate fair value with contractors.
• Monitor early warnings on labor productivity, material waste, and design gaps to flag overruns.
• Integrates project budgets with master schedules using CPM to calculate SPI/CPI via EVM.
• Build and update monthly site-level and portfolio-level WIP forecasts and cash drawdown curves.
• Develop and improve project controls reporting standards, dashboards, and metrics for leadership.
• Provide weekly financial health updates, early-warning risk logs, and contingency drawdown status reports.
• Lead coordination across teams to drive alignment on controls, forecasting, cost management, and schedule performance.
• Advise on portfolio-wide contingency liquidity and cash velocity to optimize capital deployment.
• Support multi-project forecasting and financial performance reporting.

Skills

Cost accounting and controls

Field cost tracking

Schedule integration

Earned Value Management (EVM)

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management/Finance/Engineering/Accounting

Tools

PMIS tools

Excel

Critical-path scheduling software

Job description

Flexential is seeking a senior project controls leader to oversee cost tracking, budgeting, and reporting across multiple live builds and data center projects. The role emphasizes cost control, schedule integration, and rigorous subcontract and LOE management in a hybrid work model.

The candidate will manage CPM-based planning, EV metrics, and multi-project forecasting while ensuring compliance with GMP-like controls and formal change management processes. Strong field presence is required.