Manager: Design & Interface📣 Job Ad

About Parsons Corporation

Parsons Corporation is a global leader in critical infrastructure and defense solutions, committed to valuing people, embracing agility, and fostering growth. The company cultivates an innovative culture that empowers employees to achieve their full potential. This full-time position is based in Riyadh.

Role Summary: Manager, Design & Interface

Parsons is seeking an experienced Manager, Design & Interface to support its growing team. This integrated, client-facing role operates within a Project Management Consultancy (PMC) framework, responsible for managing and assuring the end-to-end design and interface coordination process across multiple disciplines and packages. The position has a strong focus on engineering governance, interface management, and safety assurance, ensuring all designs and constructed works meet employer’s requirements, statutory obligations, and project objectives for scope, time, cost, and quality.

Key Responsibilities in Design Coordination

• Serve as the primary PMC focal point for design coordination across the program.
• Represent the client in high-level design, coordination, and interface meetings with consultants, contractors, systems integrators, authorities, and third parties.
• Ensure that employer’s requirements, technical standards, and safety obligations are clearly communicated, understood, and implemented by all delivery partners.
• Provide independent, objective advice and recommendations to client leadership on engineering, safety, interface, and program matters.
• Lead and manage the overall multi-discipline design process (concept, preliminary, detailed, and IFC) across architectural, civil/structural, MEP, rail systems, and other disciplines.
• Review and comment on key design submissions, technical reports, drawings, models, calculations, and specifications to ensure compliance with employer’s requirements, project standards, applicable local regulations, authority requirements, and relevant international standards.
• Chair and coordinate design review workshops, value engineering sessions, and constructability reviews, ensuring that design decisions are robust, buildable, and safe.
• Oversee requirements management and traceability, ensuring that all technical and safety requirements are properly captured, allocated, and verified.
• Monitor and enforce adherence to the project’s technical assurance and design governance processes.
• Manage alignment between design deliverables and construction methodology/sequencing, ensuring early identification of constructability issues.
• Support the client in assessing and approving design changes, technical deviations, and value engineering proposals, including impact on safety, schedule, cost, and interfaces.
• Ensure consistent application of configuration management across design and construction phases, including version control and change tracking.
• Coordinate closure of design-related non-conformances, technical queries, and RFIs, working with designers and contractors to achieve timely solutions.

Interface Management and Safety Assurance

• Establish and manage the project-wide interface management framework, including processes, tools, and responsibilities.
• Identify, classify, and maintain a register of all key interfaces (*, civil–systems, stations–MEP, systems–rolling stock, depots, third-party utilities).
• Chair interface coordination meetings and interface control working groups, driving resolution of interface issues and avoiding late changes.
• Review and monitor interface control documents, interface matrices, and interface agreements prepared by designers and contractors.
• Ensure that interface assumptions and decisions are documented, communicated, and implemented consistently across contracts.
• Escalate critical interface risks and conflicts to the client with options and recommendations.
• Oversee, from a PMC perspective, the integration of engineering and safety requirements throughout the design and build phases.
• Review and monitor RAMS documentation, safety cases, hazard logs, and risk assessments prepared by contractors and consultants.
• Ensure that design solutions incorporate safety by design, including construction safety, operational safety, and maintainability considerations.
• Coordinate with independent safety assessors (ISA), regulators, and third-party reviewers, consolidating findings and actions for the client.
• Verify that all required safety approvals, certifications, and authority clearances are planned, tracked, and obtained in line with project milestones.

Program Oversight and Team Leadership

• Monitor design and interface activities against the integrated master program and key milestones; identify and manage critical path items.
• Maintain and regularly update design and interface risk registers, identifying mitigation measures and contingency plans.
• Provide clear, concise reports, dashboards, and presentations for the client, covering design progress, interface status, safety issues, and key risks.
• Support project controls teams in assessing schedule and cost impacts of design/interface issues and changes.
• Coordinate with internal client stakeholders to ensure that design outcomes meet future operational and business needs.
• Interface with local authorities, utility providers, and other third parties to support approvals, NOCs, permits, and technical agreements.
• Facilitate cross-discipline alignment among multiple design consultants, contractors, and suppliers to ensure integrated, consistent solutions.
• Lead and mentor a team of design managers, interface engineers, and safety/assurance specialists within the PMC.
• Promote a culture of quality, safety, collaboration, and proactive risk management across all design and interface activities.
• Ensure robust QA/QC processes are applied to design deliverables and interface documentation.
• Capture, document, and disseminate lessons learned in design, interface management, and safety assurance across the program.

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate will possess 5 to 10 years of relevant experience in project management, design coordination, and interface management within complex engineering programs. A strong background in engineering governance and safety assurance is essential for this role.