Senior Roadway Engineer

Agency: Department of Transportation

About the Role

Bring your engineering expertise to our team in Portland as a senior roadway engineer! In this collaborative role, you will serve as our final design expert and technical lead for the Roadway Unit. You will work with project teams and provide technical direction, mentoring, and training for multimodal, rural, and highly complex urban highway projects.

Responsibilities

• Plan, direct, and scope the most complex designs for major regional transportation facilities and freight routes to solve unusual engineering problems.
• Serve as the primary authority within the Technical Center responsible for coordinating, distributing, analyzing, and reconciling multidisciplinary engineering reviews for complex highway design plans.
• Review preliminary layouts and roadside features against safety criteria to reduce future state liability. Create clear records of data used, explain design decisions, and write formal justifications when designs don’t meet standard requirements to protect the state under the Oregon Tort Claims Act (OTCA).
• Coordinate data-sharing and technical design compromises across regional environmental, traffic, right-of-way, and utility units during early major project milestones.
• Direct and approve the production of complete, construction-ready Plans, Specifications, and Estimates (PS&E) packages for advertisement.
• Use independent judgment to sign and seal final construction plan sets, special provisions, structural estimates, and design narratives as the Registered Professional Engineer of Record.
• Enforce strict adherence to the ODOT Highway Design Manual (HDM), Standard Drawings, and statewide drafting metrics before final project turn-in.
• Evaluate specialized roadway materials, traffic control staging plans, and utility conflicts to resolve engineering flaws prior to active construction bidding.
• Provide specialized technical direction and mentoring to lower-level engineers and engineering specialists.

This position requires a combination of office work and field work. Outdoor worksites require working in inclement weather, close to highway traffic, and around construction equipment. Requires moving around uneven terrain, overnight travel, overtime, and weekend or evening work as needed for projects/tasks.

Requirements

• Possession of a Professional Engineering (PE) license in the State of Oregon in the branch of Civil Engineering (CE) OR the ability to obtain the license within six months of hire. If registered in another state, successful applicants will be required to obtain a temporary permit to practice engineering within six months from the date of hire.
• Three years of licensed experience that would provide the required knowledge and skills to perform the responsibilities of the position.
• Driving is an essential function of this position. You must have a valid US driver license and an acceptable driving record. Pre-employment driving records checks will be conducted on final candidate(s).

Preferred Qualifications

If you have these attributes, let us know in your application materials:

• Experience directing complex, intricate analysis/design/operations of major facilities to solve unusual engineering problems.
• Experience serving as a staff mentor and engineering expert in highway design, safety, and operations.
• Experience advising management in determining policies and the future direction of highway design and safety.
• Experience as a subject matter expert in highway design and safety.
• Experience leading a group of professionals from multiple disciplines and project team members to deliver complex projects.

Benefits

• Work/life balance, 11 paid holidays a year, flexible work schedules, and paid leave.
• Comprehensive and equitable base salary offer within the listed range. Salary will be determined through an equal pay assessment using the information provided in your application materials.
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness opportunity.
• If you are already a participating PERS member or become PERS eligible, the salary range will increase by 6%.

Pay

Monthly salary range: $8,159 - $12,658 (non-PERS).