Principal Quality Manager

At Mott MacDonald, we trust our brilliant people to do brilliant things in engineering, management, and development services, supporting multisector project work in over 150 countries. As one of the largest employee-owned companies in the world, we pride ourselves on delivering exceptional outcomes through our network of 20,000+ talented consultants. With sustainability and innovation at the heart of our sectors in North America—including Buildings, Energy, Transportation, and Water—we empower our people to excel, learn, and grow, offering diverse opportunities to contribute to career-defining work.

About the role

Mott MacDonald is growing its Major Projects business across North America and is seeking a Senior Quality Manager to lead project quality initiatives across some of the region’s most complex infrastructure programs. This role will provide strategic and operational leadership for quality management across major transportation, aviation, rail & transit, highways, water, energy, and infrastructure projects. Working closely with project leadership teams, clients, contractors, and delivery partners, you will drive a culture of quality, continuous improvement, and right-first-time delivery while ensuring compliance with client requirements, regulatory obligations, contractual commitments, and corporate standards.

The successful candidate will serve as the quality lead on major programs, providing oversight throughout the project lifecycle from planning and design through construction, commissioning, and handover. This is a hybrid role based in one of our North American offices.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and implementation of Project Quality Management Plans (PQMPs), project quality objectives, KPIs, and reporting frameworks.
• Provide quality leadership and independent oversight across planning, design, procurement, construction, testing, commissioning, and handover activities.
• Ensure compliance with client, contractual, regulatory, and corporate quality requirements.
• Lead quality audits, surveillance activities, supplier assessments, and assurance reviews across major projects.
• Manage non-conformances, corrective actions, root-cause investigations, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Oversee quality documentation, inspection and test plans (ITPs), quality work plans, and quality control processes.
• Monitor contractor, consultant, and supplier quality performance and identify emerging risks and improvement opportunities.
• Support program assurance, stage-gate reviews, risk management processes, and project governance activities.
• Develop quality dashboards, metrics, and performance reporting for project and executive leadership teams.
• Act as the primary quality representative with clients, regulators, contractors, and delivery partners.
• Deliver quality training, mentoring, and best-practice guidance to project teams.
• Capture lessons learned and drive continuous improvement across major projects and programs.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Quality Management, or a related discipline; Master’s degree preferred.
• 15+ years of quality management experience supporting major infrastructure, transportation, rail, transit, aviation, highway, water, energy, or multidisciplinary engineering programs.
• Demonstrated experience developing and implementing Quality Management Plans, Quality Assurance programs, audit programs, and corrective action processes.
• Experience leading quality oversight across owners, contractors, consultants, regulators, and third-party reviewers.
• Strong knowledge of ISO 9001, quality management systems, quality assurance and quality control practices, auditing, risk-based quality planning, and continuous improvement methodologies.
• Experience supporting Design-Bid-Build, Design-Build, Progressive Design-Build, CM/GC, and P3 delivery models.
• Proven leadership, stakeholder management, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• Professional certifications such as CMQ/OE, ISO 9001 Lead Auditor, PMP, PE, Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt are highly desirable.
• Experience supporting programs exceeding $100M in capital value is an advantage.
• Familiarity with engineering design quality, construction quality management, configuration management, compliance management, and quality performance reporting.

Benefits

• Employee ownership with personal and group performance bonuses.
• Comprehensive benefits including 401k, medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Short-term/long-term disability, paid holidays, PTO, parental leave, and company-paid life insurance.

Pay

The expected salary for this position is $160,000 - $210,000.

Schedule

Full-time hybrid role with a minimum of three days per week in the office. Work pattern balances flexibility with in-person collaboration.

Locations: New York, NY; Seattle, WA; Iselin, NJ; Chicago, IL; Philadelphia, PA; Los Angeles, CA; Arlington, VA; Westwood, MA.