Senior Ecosystem Restoration Design Engineer Lead

Market Environmental

At Jacobs, we're challenging today to reinvent tomorrow by solving the world's most critical problems for thriving cities, resilient environments, mission-critical outcomes, operational advancement, scientific discovery and cutting-edge manufacturing, turning abstract ideas into realities that transform the world for good.

Your impact

As a Senior Ecosystem Restoration Design Engineer Lead based out of California (Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose or other city in the Bay Area) you will reside within the US West Environmental Ecosystem Restoration Department. You will work collaboratively across our markets: Environmental Permit and Planning, Water Resources and Conveyance, Resilience and Climate Change, and Transportation (among others) on multiple ecological restoration, fish passage, wildlife crossing, irrigation, multi-benefit flood management, watershed resilience, and/or coastal resilience projects.

Using your experience, you’ll be a technical lead, performing design oversight and coordinating the use of resources to accomplish quality deliverables and respond to client needs. In addition, you will lead teams consisting of stream designers, hydraulic and hydrologic modelers, fluvial geomorphologists, civil and flood management engineers, landscape architects, and aquatic and wildlife biologists to complete multi-discipline evaluations of streams, stream/roadway crossings, watershed planning/analysis, and multi-benefit projects. You’ll lead managerial efforts for planning, design, and engineering services. Project roles may include: design engineer of record, quality control reviewer as subject matter expert, design manager over a portfolio of sub-projects; as design team, staff augmentation to owners, or as contractor’s design team.

Your contributions will also be individually or as the leader of design teams to prepare, and/or review plans, technical specifications, contract documents, and estimates. Your teams will prepare basis of design reports, provide biological and geomorphic assessments, develop H&H models, floodplain analysis, and bridge scour evaluation. You’ll be a liaison between clients and agencies, subcontractors, and other design teams including permitting support and construction oversight. Your experience will be valuable as you help supervise, develop and mentor other stream team members.

Clients often include federal agencies (such as the US Bureau of Reclamation, US Army Corps of Engineers, US Forest Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, other others); California state agencies (such as Department of Water Resources, Central Valley Flood Protection Board, California Natural Resources Agency, Department of Fish and Wildlife, State Water Resources Control Board, and others), cities and counties, flood management districts, reclamation districts, local maintaining agencies, water supply agencies, watershed groups, environmental non-profits, tribal entities, and many others. Part of your role will be to build trust with clients as a seller-doer, to help with early, middle, and end game sales support. As a trusted partner external and internal to Jacobs, you will represent our One Jacobs capabilities to make sure we meet and exceed expectations.

Here's what you'll need

• Bachelor's Degree in Civil or Environmental Engineering, with experience in aquatic and terrestrial biology, fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, hydraulics, permitting for habitat and floodplain management, landscape architecture, sediment transport, scour, all as a basis for stream restoration design.
• Minimum of 10 years of progressive stream restoration design and construction oversight experience. Experience includes building trust with clients, permitting agencies, and multidisciplinary teams.
• California Professional Engineer license
• Experience developing restoration design plan sets, specifications, estimates, and construction documents.
• Demonstrated experience in leading and reviewing stream restoration designs for key technical components of survey, fish habitat, fish passage, scour analysis, hydraulics and hydrology, flood risks, geomorphology, permit ready, irrigation, and constructability of projects. Experience includes use of large woody material and boulders to provide channel complexity features, as well as experience and familiarity with design and implementation of Low-Tech Process-Based restoration techniques.
• Ability to communicate effectively to various levels of technical knowledge in an engaging and supportive way through various methods, including virtually.
• Possess time management skills, ability to prioritize multiple tasks, and ability to lead others as the task lead. You will be responsible for the scope, schedule, budget, and quality of the tasks to meet client expectations.
• Ability to engage external and internal clients by building trust through scoping tasks, building a team to execute tasks, then managing task delivery to meet scope, schedule, budget, and quality objectives.

Ideally, you’ll also have:

• Masters or advanced degree preferred
• Working knowledge of HEC-RAS 1D/2D and SRH-2D
• Working knowledge of AutoCAD Civil 3D or MicroStation/InRoads/OpenRoads
• Working knowledge of ArcGIS
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel
• Experience authoring and reviewing basis of design reports
• Experience working on design-build contracts
• 1 or more successful constructed stream restoration projects in the last 5 years in California
• Professional Engineer licensure in additional US States

Posted Salary Range: Minimum 132,900.00 Posted Salary Range: Upper 251,150.00

Our health and welfare benefits are designed to invest in you, and in the things you care about. Your health. Your well-being. Your security. Your future. Employees have access to medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance, a 401(k) plan, and the ability to purchase company stock at a discount. Eligible employees may also enroll in a deferred compensation plan or the Executive Deferral Plan. Jacobs has an unlimited U.S. Personalized Paid Time Off (PPTO) policy for full-time salaried/exempt employees, seven paid holidays, one floating holiday, and caregiver leave. And certain roles may be eligible for additional rewards, including merit increases, performance discretionary bonus, and stock.

The base salary range for this position is $132,900.00 to $251,150.00. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. Job posted on December 22, 2025. This position will be open for at least 3 days.

We value collaboration and believe that in-person interactions are crucial for both our culture and client delivery. We empower employees with our hybrid working policy, allowing them to split their work week between Jacobs offices/projects and remote locations enabling them to deliver their best work.

Your application experience is important to us, and we’re keen to adapt to make every interaction even better. If you require further support or reasonable adjustments with regards to the recruitment process (for example, you require the application form in a different format), please contact the team via .