Associate Planner

About the role

At UPP, we help create better places as partners with our clients and the communities where we work. Our projects are dynamic, complex, and deeply rooted in real places and real people—spanning housing policy, CEQA review, land-use approvals, municipal planning, and community engagement throughout the Bay Area and Northern California. We’re a small, savvy team known for designing a way forward when the path isn’t obvious. We innovate within existing policy, set thoughtful precedents, and bring clarity to the trickiest planning codes. We care about impact and about how we get there: with curiosity, rigor, collaboration, and a healthy dose of fun.

This is a mid-level, longer-term opportunity for a planner ready to lead. You’ve already managed smaller projects and supported big, complicated work—and you’re excited to grow into deeper project management, mentoring, and proposal leadership alongside a collaborative team. You’ll help deliver high-quality planning and CEQA work across Northern and Central California, with increasing responsibility for strategy, client relationships, and implementation-focused deliverables.

You’re the kind of planner who doesn’t wait for perfect clarity to move a project forward—you help create it. You bring both independence and a collaborative instinct, and you care about doing great work in a way that feels good to the people around you. You’re energized by complex,