Project Controls Specialist Jobs in North Carolina

Job Overview

Senior Project Controls Manager – Capital ProjectsPosition Summary

The Senior Project Controls Manager is responsible for leading and continuously improving project controls across a complex capital project portfolio. Reporting to the Senior Director of Capital Projects, this role provides senior-level oversight of project cost, schedule, forecasting, progress measurement, risk, change management, and portfolio performance.

This position serves as the primary project controls authority across the capital organization, ensuring projects are supported by credible baselines, disciplined cost and schedule controls, reliable forecasts, effective risk and change management, and consistent performance reporting.

The Senior Project Controls Manager works directly with Project Managers, Engineering, Construction, Operations, Procurement, Finance, and EPC/EPCM partners to assess project health, identify emerging cost and schedule exposure, challenge assumptions, and drive corrective action.

A successful candidate will bring deep industrial capital-project experience, strong technical project controls expertise, and the executive presence necessary to translate complex project information into clear, forward-looking insights for senior leadership.

Key ResponsibilitiesCapital Portfolio Leadership

• Maintain an integrated view of the capital portfolio, including approved budgets, commitments, actual expenditures, forecasts, cash flow, schedules, milestones, contingency, risk, and overall project performance.
• Consolidate project-level information into reliable portfolio forecasts and executive reporting.
• Provide forward-looking analysis of capital deployment, project completion, cash flow, and potential cost or schedule exposure.
• Support annual capital planning, budgeting, periodic forecasting, and long-range capital planning.
• Develop portfolio dashboards and KPIs that provide leadership with clear visibility into project execution and capital performance.
• Identify systemic or portfolio-level risks and escalate significant exposures to leadership.

Cost Control & Forecasting

• Establish and maintain rigorous cost-control and forecasting practices across the portfolio.
• Oversee project budgets, commitments, actual costs, accruals, forecasts, cash flow, contingency, and Estimates at Completion (EAC).
• Review and challenge project forecasts for accuracy, completeness, and appropriate consideration of identified risks and opportunities.
• Analyze cost trends, variances, potential overruns, and forecast changes and work with Project Managers to establish corrective actions.
• Maintain visibility of purchase orders, contracts, invoices, change orders, contingency utilization, and remaining project exposure.
• Partner with Finance to ensure alignment between project controls data and financial reporting.

Planning & Scheduling

• Establish scheduling standards appropriate to project size, complexity, risk, and execution phase.
• Ensure projects maintain credible integrated schedules covering engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, startup, and closeout.
• Evaluate schedule logic, sequencing, critical path, float, milestones, resource constraints, and overall schedule quality.
• Monitor schedule performance against approved baselines and identify milestone slippage, critical-path changes, and emerging execution risks.
• Lead schedule reviews with project teams and contractors and challenge assumptions, progress, recovery plans, and completion forecasts.
• Support development of schedule mitigation and recovery strategies.

Performance, Risk & Change Management

• Establish consistent methods for measuring engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and overall project progress.
• Develop and monitor leading and lagging indicators for cost, schedule, forecast accuracy, milestone performance, contingency utilization, and change trends.
• Provide early warning of emerging cost, schedule, resource, or execution issues before they materially affect project outcomes.
• Establish and maintain disciplined project change-control processes.
• Ensure scope, cost, schedule, and assumption changes are evaluated, approved, documented, and incorporated into project baselines and forecasts.
• Integrate project risk information into forecasts, contingency assessments, and schedule projections.
• Support quantitative cost and schedule risk analysis for major projects where appropriate.

Project Controls Governance

• Develop and maintain project controls standards, procedures, templates, systems, and reporting requirements across the capital organization.
• Establish scalable controls based on project size, complexity, risk, and execution phase.
• Drive consistent use of WBS/CBS structures, project coding, baseline management, forecasting, progress measurement, change control, and risk management.
• Conduct periodic project-controls and project-health reviews.
• Support stage-gate and capital approval processes through validation of cost estimates, schedules, cash-flow forecasts, contingency, and execution assumptions.
• Continuously improve project controls processes, systems, tools, data quality, and reporting.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the project controls subject-matter expert for the Capital Projects organization.
• Provide senior-level guidance and coaching to Project Managers on cost, schedule, forecasting, change management, and project performance.
• Constructively challenge project teams and contractors when forecasts, schedules, assumptions, or performance data are not adequately supported.
• Establish expectations for project controls deliverables from EPC/EPCM firms, engineering partners, construction managers, and contractors and monitor compliance.
• Partner closely with Finance, Procurement, Engineering, Construction, and Operations to improve the quality and timeliness of project information.
• Translate detailed project data into concise, decision-oriented recommendations and executive-level reporting.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Finance, Business, or a related technical discipline.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in project controls, capital project management, engineering, construction, or major project delivery, with significant senior-level project controls responsibility.
• Demonstrated experience managing project controls for large, complex industrial, manufacturing, infrastructure, EPC, or EPCM projects and portfolios.
• Advanced expertise in cost control, forecasting, scheduling, progress measurement, change management, risk management, and project performance analysis.
• Strong experience managing project budgets, commitments, actuals, accruals, forecasts, contingency, cash flow, and EAC.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate integrated project schedules, critical paths, milestone performance, and recovery strategies.
• Strong understanding of engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, startup, and project closeout.
• Proven ability to identify emerging project risks and challenge project teams and contractors constructively.
• Strong executive communication skills with the ability to convert complex project information into clear business insights and recommendations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Significant experience in industrial manufacturing, metals, chemicals, aerospace, energy, or another asset-intensive environment.
• Owner-side capital project experience combined with EPC/EPCM or construction experience.
• Experience overseeing multiple simultaneous capital projects, including large and complex major projects.
• Advanced experience with Primavera P6 or equivalent enterprise scheduling tools.
• Strong proficiency with Excel and enterprise project cost-management/reporting systems.
• Experience with Power BI or similar business-intelligence platforms.
• Familiarity with Oracle, SAP, or comparable ERP systems.
• Knowledge of AACE International recommended practices and project controls methodologies.
• PMP, AACE CCP, PSP, EVP, or similar professional certification preferred.

Measures of Success

Success in this role will be demonstrated through improved capital forecast and EAC accuracy, reliable schedules and milestone forecasts, earlier identification of cost and schedule exposure, disciplined change and contingency management, stronger contractor controls, consistent project baselines, and high-quality portfolio information that enables senior leadership to make timely capital decisions.

Pay: $75.00 - $90.00 per hour

Expected hours: 40.0 per week

Application Question(s):

• Must be able to work as a 1099 Contractor?

Work Location: In person