Lead Project Controls Specialist, EPC

Position Summary

The Lead Project Controls Specialist serves as a project controls lead for Redwood’s EPC capital projects, owning the integrated cost and schedule baseline and the performance reporting that leadership relies on to make decisions. This role develops and tracks project KPIs, administers earned value management, and leads cost control, budget tracking, forecasting, and change management across engineering, procurement, and construction phases. The successful candidate will set project controls standards and procedures, provide technical direction and mentorship to schedulers, and act as the primary controls interface with EPC contractors, project management, and Finance.

Responsibilities/Essential Duties will Include:

• Lead the project controls function for assigned capital projects, setting the standards, procedures, and reporting cadence used across cost, schedule, estimating, and change management.
• Develop, structure, and maintain the project work breakdown structure (WBS), along with the supporting cost breakdown structure (CBS) and organizational breakdown structure (OBS), so that scope, schedule activities, estimates, commitments, and actual costs all map to a single coding framework and roll up cleanly at any level of the project.
• Develop, baseline, and maintain the project KPI set — including CPI, SPI, productivity factors, commodity installation curves, safety and quality leading indicators, and milestone adherence — and track performance against targets throughout the project lifecycle.
• Own earned value management for the project: establish control accounts and work packages against the WBS, define rules of credit and progress measurement methods, and calculate and analyze BCWS, BCWP, ACWP, CV, SV, EAC, ETC, and TCPI.
• Govern the integrity of the WBS and coding structures over the project lifecycle — aligning them with ERP/accounting cost codes, and estimate structures, and controlling revisions as scope and contracting strategy evolve.
• Direct cost control activities, including budget development and allocation, commitment and expenditure tracking, accruals, cash flow projections, and monthly cost forecasts at the control account and project level.
• Build and maintain the project budget, track actuals against budget, and produce variance analyses that explain cost and schedule deviations, quantify their impact, and identify corrective actions.
• Manage the change control process — evaluating trends, change orders, and scope revisions for cost and schedule impact, maintaining the change log and contingency/management reserve registers, and ensuring approved changes are incorporated into the baseline.
• Develop, integrate, and maintain cost-loaded and resource-loaded schedules in Primavera P6, including critical path analysis, schedule health checks, and progress updates from field and contractor data.
• Produce and present weekly and monthly project performance reports and executive dashboards, translating cost, schedule, and earned value data into clear findings and recommendations for project and senior leadership.
• Perform quantitative risk analysis, including schedule and cost risk assessments, what-if and recovery scenario modeling, and contingency drawdown tracking.
• Partner with Finance, Procurement, Engineering, Estimating, and Construction Management to align project reporting with capital budgets, purchase commitments, and accounting periods.
• Establish and improve project controls tools, templates, data structures, and reporting automation to increase accuracy and reduce manual reporting effort.
• Provide guidance, training, and technical mentorship to planners, schedulers, and cost analysts, and review their work products for quality and consistency.
• Support project close-out, including final cost reconciliation, schedule performance analysis, benchmarking, and capture of lessons learned and historical data for future estimates.

 

• Desired Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree in construction management, engineering, business administration, or a related field. Equivalent work experience may be considered.
• Minimum of 8 years of project controls experience on construction, EPC, or large-scale industrial capital projects, including time in a lead or senior role directing controls scope and personnel.
• Demonstrated ownership of cost control, budget tracking, and forecasting on projects of significant capital value, from baseline development through close-out.
• Hands-on expertise in earned value management, including progress measurement, rules of credit, control account structures, and EAC/ETC forecasting.
• Proven experience developing project KPIs and building performance reports and dashboards for project and executive audiences.
• Advanced proficiency in Primavera P6; experience with cost management systems (e.g., EcoSys, Oracle, SAP) and reporting tools such as Power BI or Tableau.
• Advanced Excel skills for cost modeling, data analysis, and reconciliation of large data sets.
• Demonstrated experience structuring WBS, CBS, and OBS for large capital projects, including control account design, cost coding, and alignment of contractor and ERP reporting structures.
• Strong working knowledge of change management, trend programs, and contingency and risk management practices.
• Experience with quantitative schedule and cost risk analysis and what-if scenario modeling.
• Experience reviewing contractor progress claims, invoices, and baseline schedules, and supporting negotiation of change orders and delay claims.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain cost and schedule performance to technical and non-technical stakeholders and to influence without direct authority.
• AACE (CCP, EVP, PSP) or PMI (PMP, PMI-SP) certification preferred.
• Experience in battery, chemical processing, heavy manufacturing, or other complex industrial environments is a plus.