Customer Facing Project Manager Jobs in Ridgewood, NJ

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior Director of Project Management to lead the project management function for a growing solar EPC contractor delivering commercial solar projects through a combination of self-perform construction and GC/EPC work with subcontractors.

This role is responsible for customer-facing project delivery, commercial project outcomes, project controls, schedule performance, financial tracking, risk management, and leadership of the project management team. The Senior Director of Project Management will work closely with Construction, Engineering, Pre-Construction, Procurement, Accounting, Safety, and Executive Leadership to ensure projects are planned, managed, documented, and closed out successfully.

The ideal candidate is a strong project delivery leader with experience managing complex construction or renewable energy projects, protecting project margin, building disciplined project controls, and leading project managers across multiple concurrent projects.

Key Responsibilities

Project Leadership and Commercial Ownership

·         Lead the project management function across assigned commercial solar EPC projects.

·         Own customer-facing project delivery, including client communication, contract administration, schedule commitments, commercial issue resolution, and executive-level project updates.

·         Ensure project teams understand contract scope, exclusions, assumptions, milestones, liquidated damages exposure, customer deliverables, reporting obligations, and closeout requirements.

·         Lead project kickoff, handoff, and alignment processes following Pre-Construction and estimating turnover.

·         Establish clear project execution plans in coordination with Construction, Engineering, Procurement, Safety, and Accounting.

·         Maintain executive visibility into project risks, margin risks, schedule risks, customer risks, and resource constraints.

·         Ensure project managers proactively manage scope, schedule, budget, documentation, owner communication, and change events.

Project Controls and Schedule Management

·         Own and improve the company’s project controls standards, including schedule tracking, budget tracking, cost reporting, change logs, procurement logs, risk registers, submittal logs, RFI logs, closeout logs, and executive reporting formats.

·         Ensure project schedules are established, maintained, updated, and communicated consistently.

·         Coordinate with Construction leadership to validate construction durations, manpower plans, field sequencing, productivity assumptions, weather impacts, outage constraints, and recovery plans.

·         Monitor schedule performance against contractual milestones and internal targets.

·         Lead project-level schedule recovery planning in partnership with Construction when projects fall behind plan.

·         Ensure customer schedule commitments are realistic, documented, and aligned with field execution capacity.

Financial Performance and Change Management

·         Own project financial tracking, forecast accuracy, margin protection, and project-level commercial performance.

·         Review and monitor project budgets, committed costs, cost-to-complete forecasts, change orders, allowances, contingencies, and billing status.

·         Lead change order identification, pricing coordination, submission, negotiation support, approval tracking, and customer communication.

·         Coordinate with Construction to validate field impacts, labor productivity impacts, schedule impacts, and subcontractor cost impacts related to change events.

·         Partner with Accounting and Executive Leadership to support accurate revenue recognition, billing readiness, cost reporting, and project financial forecasting.

·         Identify margin erosion risks early and lead corrective action planning with Construction and company leadership.

Customer and Stakeholder Management

·         Serve as a senior escalation point for customer issues, contract questions, project status concerns, change order disputes, and delivery risks.

·         Ensure project managers maintain strong customer relationships while protecting company interests.

·         Manage customer expectations regarding schedule, access, deliverables, procurement lead times, utility coordination, design changes, and field constraints.

·         Provide concise, accurate, and timely executive reporting to internal and external stakeholders.

·         Ensure communication between Project Management, Construction, Engineering, and Pre-Construction is disciplined and documented.

PM Team Leadership

·         Lead, mentor, and develop the project management team.

·         Establish consistent PM procedures, documentation expectations, reporting standards, meeting cadences, and project closeout standards.

·         Assign project managers based on project size, complexity, geography, customer type, and team capacity.

·         Review project manager performance, workload, training needs, and adherence to company standards.

·         Build a culture of accountability, proactive communication, commercial awareness, and disciplined project controls.

Coordination with Construction

·         Partner with Construction leadership to align project plans with field execution realities.

·         Coordinate labor planning, project sequencing, construction readiness, subcontractor performance concerns, schedule recovery actions, and major field constraints.

·         Ensure field concerns that affect cost, schedule, scope, safety, quality, or customer commitments are elevated and documented.

·         Support Construction leadership by helping remove customer, contract, procurement, documentation, and commercial obstacles that delay field progress.

Qualifications

·         Significant experience managing commercial construction, renewable energy, solar EPC, electrical construction, or related project delivery operations.

·         Strong understanding of construction contracts, project controls, schedules, budgets, change orders, customer management, and financial forecasting.

·         Experience leading project managers and managing multiple concurrent projects across different geographies.

·         Ability to coordinate effectively with field construction leadership, engineering, procurement, accounting, safety, subcontractors, and executive leadership.

·         Strong written and verbal communication skills, including executive reporting and customer-facing communication.

·         Demonstrated ability to protect project margin, manage risk, and drive schedule performance.

Preferred Experience

·         Experience with commercial or utility-scale solar EPC projects.

·         Experience working with both self-perform construction teams and subcontractor-based delivery models.

·         Familiarity with project management systems, project controls tools, ERP/job cost systems, and construction scheduling platforms.

·         Experience building or improving PM processes, reporting standards, and project execution procedures.

·         Experience supporting project delivery across multiple states or regional markets.

Success in This Role Looks Like

·         Projects are delivered with clear ownership, disciplined controls, and proactive communication.

·         Project schedules, budgets, change orders, risks, procurement issues, and closeout requirements are visible and actively managed.

·         Project managers operate with consistent standards and strong accountability.

·         Construction, Engineering, Pre-Construction, Procurement, Accounting, and Safety are aligned around one execution plan.

·         Customer expectations are managed professionally while protecting company margin and contractual position.

·         Project risks are identified early, escalated appropriately, and resolved before they become major delivery issues.

Key Performance Indicators

·         Project margin performance versus approved budget.

·         Schedule milestone performance and recovery effectiveness.

·         Change order identification, submission, approval, and collection performance.

·         Forecast accuracy and project reporting quality.

·         Customer satisfaction and repeat business support.

·         PM team performance, consistency, and documentation compliance.

·         Reduction in avoidable project surprises, unmanaged risks, and late escalations.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is a senior project delivery leader who can operate at both the strategic and practical levels. This person understands the commercial side of construction, knows how to build strong project controls, communicates well with customers and executives, and can lead project managers through complex delivery challenges.

This role requires someone who is proactive, organized, financially aware, contractually disciplined, and comfortable working in a fast-moving EPC environment where strong coordination between Project Management and Construction is essential.