Senior Space Planner

About the role

Help shape the environments where world-class healthcare happens. This is a unique opportunity to influence how Stanford Health Care grows, evolves, and delivers exceptional patient care through strategic space planning and program leadership. As a Senior Space Planner on the FPD Planning team, you will lead complex healthcare planning programs that support organizational growth, operational efficiency, and informed decision-making. Working across a diverse stakeholder landscape, you will develop strategic space solutions while navigating competing priorities in a dynamic healthcare environment.

What You Will Do

• Define project scope and planning assumptions for complex, multi-department initiatives; develop budget recommendations consistent with institutional priorities.
• Coordinate communication, schedules, deliverables, and interdependencies across departments, service lines, and multiple sites; manage the critical path for planning deliverables.
• Ensure compliance with SHC policies; Facility Guidelines Institute (FGI) standards; California Building Code (CBC) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements.
• Oversee selection and standards for furnishings and finishes, ensuring alignment with branding, infection-prevention, and sustainability guidelines.
• Create and maintain complete, auditable planning documentation including narratives, alternatives analyses, diagrams, and decision documents used by executive governance.
• Develop and compare complex test fits, blocking and stacking strategies, and migration/decanting scenarios; present operational, schedule, cost, and experience-related trade-offs.
• Lead multi-site space studies; define space allocation standards, utilization benchmarks, and methodologies for prioritization and sequencing.
• Own data governance for computer-aided facilities management/integrated workplace management systems (CAFM/IWMS); maintain metrics such as utilization, density, and assignable square feet (ASF) per full-time equivalent (FTE).
• Facilitate governance processes for prioritization and investment decisions; prepare executive-ready materials and secure alignment across stakeholders.
• Mentor junior planners and provide technical oversight of planning deliverables; coordinate with Capital Projects on scope, schedule, and budget impacts.
• Independently resolve complex, novel planning challenges requiring expert judgment, scenario development, and balancing of multiple, competing institutional drivers.

Qualifications

Education: Bachelor's degree in Architecture, Interior Architecture, Planning, or related field required.

Experience: 10 years of professional experience, which includes 8+ years of progressive space planning required, with experience in healthcare or academic settings, with demonstrated expertise in CAFM/IWMS governance and proficiency with spreadsheets and data.

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Advanced ability to analyze competing needs across departments, set allocation standards, and recommend sequencing or migration strategies to optimize portfolio performance.
• Expertise developing complex test fits, stacking diagrams, and program translations with clear articulation of trade-offs.
• Data systems leadership, including ownership of CAFM/IWMS data structures; development of KPIs such as utilization and density; and demonstrated spreadsheet experience (such as pivot tables and basic data formulas).
• Strong working knowledge of CBC and ADA; familiarity with HCAI processes a plus.
• High-quality communication and stakeholder alignment skills, including development of Microsoft PowerPoint materials for executive audiences; ability to facilitate workshops and consensus across multiple departments.
• Ability to navigate multidisciplinary environments and coordinate with contractors, engineers, clinical leaders.
• Skilled in mentoring and coaching junior planners.
• Proficiency with Bluebeam, Microsoft Office Suite, and architectural review tools; ability to read and interpret as-built drawings and iterate layouts using Autodesk Revit and AutoCAD.
• Ability to lead advanced problem solving and make recommendations that balance safety, cost, operations, and experience impacts.

Pay

Generally starting at $64.63 - $85.65 per hour. The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, internal equity, experience, education, specialty and training.