Senior Director Pre-Construction

WMATA; Alexandria (VA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

WMATA is seeking a Senior Director of Pre-Construction to lead the Office of Pre-Construction and shape WMATA’s capital program. You will direct planning for major projects—from rail expansions and station modernization to critical infrastructure upgrades—overseeing constructability, risk management, and task order coordination to set the stage for safe, reliable, and sustainable delivery.

You will partner with cross-functional teams and regional stakeholders, guide procurement strategies for

Responsibilities

• Develops and manages short- and long-term goals for the Office of Pre-Construction to support WMATA’s strategic transformation.
• Develops procurement and contract strategies for professional services or construction that ensure timely delivery of project scope.
• Manages the processes to develop implementation strategy for proposed projects, including contracting structure and risk transfer.
• Evaluates staffing and organizational development to ensure adequate personnel and provides coaching and training to staff.
• Leads cost-benefit analyses of contracting strategies to determine best value and on-time delivery.

Job description

Marketing Statement

WMATA is seeking a Senior Director of Pre-Construction to help shape the future of one of the nation’s most essential transit systems. In this leadership role within the Office of Project Delivery, you will drive strategy and development for transformative capital projects—from rail expansions and station modernization to critical infrastructure upgrades. You’ll lead pre‑construction planning, oversee task order management, and support marketing outreach efforts that position WMATA’s capital program for success. You will optimize multi‑year capital programs and proactively mitigate risk while ensuring the highest standards of safety, reliability, and sustainability. Partnering with cross‑functional teams and regional stakeholders, you will guide complex projects from concept to readiness for execution, leveraging expertise in planning, constructability and Project Management. This is a unique opportunity to champion innovation and deliver lasting impact across a vital transportation network.

Position Description

The Senior Director, Pre-Construction directs and manages the activities and operations of the Office of Pre-Construction. The incumbent manages and coordinates the planning of capital projects for the Authority’s capital construction program, currently valued at approximately $1.5B per year; oversees and monitors engineering, construction and other capital activities of task order consultants to ensure fulfillment of contract specifications, timetables, budgets, and other conditions; ensures the achievement of best practices in planning, project delivery methods and procurement; provides market outreach support for all departments within the Office of Infrastructure and the wider WMATA organization; ensures policies, procedures, and standards for their department comply with various legal, safety, and other regulatory requirements, particularly FTA project management oversight; and provides support to the SVP Project Delivery as requested. The incumbent also assists in the development of key performance metrics and oversees the team performance to ensure effective implementation of programs.

Principal Job Duties

• Develops and manages implementation of the Office of Pre-Construction setting short- and long-term goals, objectives, policies and priorities; determines the allocation of resources and organization structure to lead and build excellent teams to support metros strategic transformation plan.
• Developing procurement and contract strategies for professional services or construction contracts that result in optimal execution and delivery of the project scope to deliver capital projects on time.
• Manages the processes to develop the implementation strategy for proposed and approved projects, including contracting structure, risk transfer, scheduling and associated cost-benefit analyses. Works in close collaboration with Project Management (PM) Team to develop project delivery strategy for each project to lead and build excellent teams to support metros strategic transformation and deliver capital projects on time.
• Evaluates staffing and organizational development to ensure that the number of personnel are commensurate with the magnitude of workload. Ensures that staff have the technical knowledge or training to successfully accomplish the duties of their positions; and performs coaching/mentoring and training of staff directly. Carries out supervisory responsibilities which include interviewing, hiring, planning, assigning and directing work; appraising performance and addressing complaints and grievances to lead and build excellent teams.
• Leads the establishment of effective processes to develop cost benefit analysis of potential contracting strategies to determine best value to WMATA, inclusive of all costs and risks to deliver capital projects on time.
• Collaborates with the Office of Capital Programs Support (OCPS) and Procurement (PRMT) for the development of task orders, as needed, to engage appropriate resources. As needed, manages the production of scopes of work for engineering and project management services for selected alternatives to bridge projects to the next phase of implementation.
• Leads outreach to contracting community and industry to ensure best practice solutions are taken into consideration in the development of future work.
• Provides both procurement and closeout support to PM teams.

Other Duties

• Maintains and promotes awareness and accountability with safety policies and procedures while performing job functions. Promotes a positive safety culture and encourages reporting of safety concerns consistent with our Agency Safety Plan, other regulatory requirements within the Safety Management System and just culture principles.

The functions listed are not intended to limit specific duties and responsibilities of any particular position. Nor is it intended to limit in any way the right of managers and supervisors to assign, direct and control the work of employees under their supervision.