Associate Airfield Pavement📣 Job Ad

About the Role

WSP Middle East is seeking an Associate – Airfield Pavement to join its airport design team in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This full-time role focuses on supporting the delivery of major aviation infrastructure projects, with a primary emphasis on the design, assessment, and rehabilitation of airport pavements. The position requires a highly experienced pavement engineer, ideally at a Senior or Principal level, to contribute specialist expertise to critical infrastructure developments.

Technical Delivery and Pavement Design

The Associate will lead and undertake comprehensive design activities for airport pavements, developing engineering solutions for both new airfield pavements and existing pavement upgrades. Key responsibilities include:

• Leading the design of airport pavements for aviation infrastructure projects, including runways, taxiways, aprons/aircraft stands, shoulders, blast pads, and airside service roads.
• Delivering runway pavement rehabilitation designs, encompassing evaluation of existing conditions, structural assessment, rehabilitation strategies, strengthening options, overlay design, reconstruction solutions, and staged implementation planning.
• Executing pavement engineering tasks such as pavement thickness design, flexible and rigid pavement design, overlay design, rehabilitation schemes, pavement condition evaluations, life-cycle assessment, durability considerations, and pavement materials selection and specification development.
• Contributing to the design of broader pavement works, including landside roads, heavy-duty pavements, maintenance areas, access roads, and service infrastructure as required.

Design Management and Coordination

This role involves significant coordination with multidisciplinary teams to ensure integrated and compliant pavement designs. Responsibilities include:

• Coordinating with airfield civil engineering, geotechnical engineering, drainage and utilities, structural engineering, aviation planning and operations, and construction and phasing teams.
• Ensuring pavement designs are integrated with wider airport systems, operational requirements, safety constraints, and construction staging strategies.
• Reviewing and validating pavement design inputs such as traffic loading, aircraft movement data, subgrade parameters, material properties, drainage considerations, and operational constraints.
• Supporting the preparation of design reports, technical notes, specifications, drawings, bill items, and tender documentation.

Standards, Compliance, and Technical Governance

The Associate will ensure all designs adhere to relevant industry standards and regional requirements, providing technical oversight and quality assurance. Key tasks include:

• Applying relevant international and project-specific standards, guidance, and best practices for airport pavement design and rehabilitation.
• Ensuring designs comply with applicable aviation, airport, and infrastructure requirements, while adapting solutions to suit regional conditions in Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East.
• Considering factors such as high-temperature environments, material availability, construction methodologies, asset longevity, airport operational continuity, safety, and regulatory expectations.
• Providing technical review and governance over pavement design outputs prepared by others.

Client Engagement and Team Leadership

This role involves significant interaction with clients and stakeholders, alongside mentoring junior team members. Responsibilities include:

• Acting as a senior technical point of contact for clients, stakeholders, and project teams on pavement engineering matters.
• Supporting project planning, programme input, risk identification, and resource coordination for pavement design activities.
• Contributing to client presentations, technical workshops, design reviews, and value engineering sessions.
• Mentoring and supporting junior engineers and less experienced pavement team members.
• Providing technical leadership across multiple packages or projects and supporting business development opportunities in aviation pavement engineering, depending on the level of experience.

Candidate Profile

The successful candidate will possess strong technical expertise in airport pavement engineering, coupled with a deep understanding of pavement design principles, rehabilitation methodologies, material performance, and airfield operational requirements. Broader knowledge across other pavement types, such as highways, roads, heavy-duty industrial pavements, and landside infrastructure, will be advantageous. Middle East experience is strongly preferred due to the need to interpret and apply different international standards, local authority requirements, climatic considerations, and project delivery conditions relevant to airport pavements in the region.