Principal Program Controls Engineer

About the Role

Parsons Corporation is seeking a Principal Program Controls Engineer to join their team in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This full-time role involves providing senior-level support in managing the cost, pricing, forecasting, and change-management activities for a major program. The position ensures that project financial information is accurate, current, and aligned with approved budgets, contracts, schedules, and program objectives.

Key Responsibilities

The Principal Program Controls Engineer will collaborate with project managers, commercial and contracts teams, contractors, consultants, procurement, finance, and senior management to monitor financial performance, evaluate commercial risks, and support decision-making throughout the project lifecycle. Responsibilities include:

• Developing, maintaining, and monitoring program budgets and approved cost baselines.
• Tracking actual costs, commitments, accruals, invoices, forecasts, and remaining budgets.
• Preparing cost reports, financial forecasts, and estimate-at-completion reports.
• Monitoring cost trends and providing early warnings of potential budget overruns.
• Reviewing project financial data for accuracy, consistency, and proper allocation.
• Supporting monthly reporting, financial reviews, and program management meetings.
• Ensuring approved scope and budget changes are properly incorporated into cost forecasts.
• Coordinating cost information with planning, procurement, contracts, and project delivery teams.

Pricing and Commercial Analysis

This role involves comprehensive pricing and commercial analysis, including:

• Reviewing contractor, consultant, and supplier pricing submissions.
• Assessing quotations, rates, quantities, labor, materials, equipment, overheads, preliminaries, escalation, and profit.
• Preparing independent cost estimates for proposed work and project changes.
• Comparing submitted prices with contract rates, bills of quantities, market benchmarks, and historical data.
• Evaluating the financial impact of design changes, additional works, omissions, substitutions, and revised requirements.
• Reviewing pricing for variations, claims, delay costs, and acceleration.
• Identifying unsupported, excessive, or inconsistent costs and recommending adjustments.
• Preparing clear pricing evaluations and commercial recommendations for management approval.
• Supporting negotiations with contractors and consultants by providing detailed cost analysis.

Change and Variation Management

The Principal Program Controls Engineer will manage and administer the program change-control process, including:

• Reviewing change requests, variation orders, claims, and potential changes.
• Assessing the effect of proposed changes on cost, schedule, scope, resources, procurement, and risk.
• Preparing cost and schedule impact assessments for management review.
• Maintaining change registers showing the status and value of each change.
• Tracking changes from initial identification through evaluation, approval, implementation, and closeout.
• Ensuring changes are properly authorized before inclusion in the budget or forecast.
• Verifying that approved changes are reflected in cost reports, forecasts, schedules, and project-control systems.
• Monitoring contractor submissions and supporting the assessment and resolution of variations and claims.
• Reporting change exposure, pending approvals, and financial risks to program leadership.

Forecasting and Reporting

• Preparing monthly and quarterly program controls reports.
• Providing updated forecasts for budget, cost, commitments, revenue, and estimate at completion.
• Analyzing cost performance and explaining significant changes in the forecast.
• Preparing reports on approved changes, pending variations, contingency usage, and commercial exposure.
• Developing dashboards and management presentations highlighting key cost and change information.
• Providing recommendations to reduce cost growth and improve financial performance.
• Ensuring consistency of cost, schedule, risk, procurement, and change information across all reports.
• Supporting program reviews, change-control boards, commercial meetings, and client presentations.

Qualifications and Experience

Candidates should possess 5-10 years of relevant experience in program controls, with a focus on cost management, pricing, forecasting, and change management within major programs.