Remote Pivot Design Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

Job Description: Denver Location PreferredOpen to Remote Opportunities ROLE OVERVIEW The Preconstruction Manager supports Pivot Energy’s preconstruction function from mid- to late-stage development handoff through EPC Agreement execution and transition into project delivery. This role coordinates contractor engagement, bidding, estimating, commercial alignment, project-specific contracting, and budget formation in support of Pivot Energy’s project delivery methodologies, including but not limited to Design-Build, Integrated Design-Build, Design-Bid-Build, CMAR, and other delivery approaches used to support successful IPP project execution. The role engages preferred contractor partners and internal stakeholders across Development, Legal, Project Management, Finance, Supply Chain Procurement, Engineering, Compliance, and other functions as needed to ensure projects enter execution with aligned scope, documented assumptions, commercial clarity, realistic schedules, appropriate risk allocation, strong document discipline, and budgets structured for effective execution control. This role must understand job costing methodologies and have experience working with project management software, job costing systems, ERP platforms, and related reporting or analytics tools that support estimating, budget setup, cost tracking, forecasting, and continuity into execution. This position materially supports Pivot’s eight focus areas throughout the preconstruction stage: Stakeholder Management, Contract Management, Quality Management, Financial Management, Schedule Management, Compliance Management, Risk Management, and Document Management, ensuring projects are well-planned, commercially sound, buildable, and aligned with cost, schedule, quality, safety, and compliance goals. Because cost control in an IPP model is influenced by all eight focus areas, this role must understand how decisions across those areas affect estimate quality, contract obligations, budget structure, contingencies, schedule risk, compliance exposure, and execution outcomes. PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES 1. Stakeholder Management Ensure the appropriate internal and external stakeholders are engaged from development handoff through bidding, contractor alignment, commercial negotiation, and contract execution. Lead site assessment strategy, field diligence coordination, and consultant engagement activities supporting the Corporate Clean Energy Solutions (CCES) pipeline from mid- to late-stage development. Participate in site evaluations as needed to validate project readiness, align stakeholders, and proactively identify constructability, schedule, and execution risks. Maintain timely communication, accountability, and alignment across Preconstruction, Development, Legal, Project Management, Finance, Engineering, Procurement, Compliance, and other required participants. Coordinate bid review, descope, commercial alignment, and pre-award meetings with contractors and internal stakeholders. Ensure open development assumptions, commercial terms, owner obligations, and project readiness items are aligned with term sheets, POs, LOIs, EPC agreements, subcontracts, and execution strategy. Facilitate peer reviews and handoff meetings to Project Management following execution so that negotiated terms, assumptions, exclusions, clarifications, milestones, and unresolved risks are fully understood and documented. Drive timely issue closure and escalate unresolved commercial, schedule, scope, and risk items when required. 2. Contract Management Serve as a primary coordination point with Legal and other internal stakeholders for project-specific contract review workflow, issue resolution, document turn management, and negotiation support. Support development of contract exhibits, scope alignment, risk position tracking, commercial clarifications, and approval routing. Maintain clear decision logs, open-issue trackers, review logs, target execution dates, and document version control. Support negotiation planning and ensure pre-award commitments and negotiated terms transition into execution without loss of context. Apply understanding of different project delivery methodologies to contract structure, risk allocation, scope definition, and commercial positioning. 3. Quality Management Support Preconstruction leadership in ensuring contractor partners are appropriately prequalified and that contractor performance feedback is incorporated into selection decisions. Help ensure development and bid packages are complete, accurate, coordinated, and issued with sufficient detail to support accurate pricing, schedule development, contracting, and execution planning. Coordinate and participate in field diligence activities, constructability evaluations, estimate reviews, subcontractor procurement efforts, and package quality assurance processes to support accurate pricing, execution readiness, and successful project delivery outcomes. Reduce rework caused by poor document hygiene, incomplete consultant deliverables or bid packages, missing scope definition, unclear design basis, or inadequate response to contractor RFIs. Integrate safety planning into preconstruction by ensuring project-specific safety expectations, known site risks, temporary works considerations, and safety-related bid inclusions are identified early enough to inform scope, means and methods sensitivity, budget, and contractor alignment. 4. Financial Management Produce, coordinate, and validate cost estimates and project budgets for PV and BESS projects, highlighting assumptions, exclusions, clarifications, allowances, contingencies, and other material commercial drivers. Analyze cost drivers, identify cost-saving opportunities, support value engineering, and ensure budgets align with project objectives and execution strategy. Coordinate RFQs and RFPs, subcontractor bid leveling, descope reviews, and commercial reconciliation of contractor and vendor pricing. Collaborate with Procurement and internal stakeholders to ensure owner-furnished equipment, subcontractor scope, vendor costs, and third-party services are accurately incorporated into project budgets. Maintain strong Basis of Estimate discipline by ensuring all estimates clearly document scope basis, assumptions, exclusions, clarifications, allowances, contingencies, pricing sources, unresolved risks, and reconciliation between estimate versions as projects progress through preconstruction. Establish budgets for execution using disciplined cost code and cost type structures that appropriately allocate scope, commercial exposure, and controllable risk in a manner that reflects contract obligations, reporting needs, and forecast visibility during project execution. Understand how to structure the budget so cost codes, cost types, and related attributes preserve continuity from estimate to contract value to project budget to job cost reporting and forecast updates. Carve risk appropriately into contingencies and allowances, including areas of shared commercial exposure between contractor and Pivot to maintain control of bid costs and execution-period costs while preserving visibility into ownership of risk. Support procurement strategy by identifying bid packaging approach, owner-furnished versus contractor-furnished scope strategy, long-lead considerations, and market constraints that may affect cost, timing, and risk. Monitor project budgets throughout preconstruction and provide clear cost-tracking reports and updates to Delivery leadership. 5. Schedule Management Manage Preconstruction’s portion of the project schedule and maintain credible baselines tied to permitting, interconnection, procurement, contractor engagement, contract execution, notice to proceed, and key delivery milestones. Support development, review, and management of logic-based schedules and critical path awareness sufficient to identify schedule risk, procurement interfaces, design dependencies, and execution constraints. Validate schedule realism against development assumptions, design maturity, procurement strategy, access constraints, utility requirements, and construction sequencing. Use Pivot’s schedule template as part of commercial alignment and negotiation with contractors, ensuring contractors either utilize Pivot’s template or integrate their schedules into it in a manner that allows Pivot, as owner and IPP, to consistently monitor project progress and performance across the full project lifecycle. Ensure deadlines are visible, communicated, monitored, and escalated when aged review items, delayed responses, or missed commitments threaten execution readiness. Manage handoff continuity so that schedule assumptions carried in development and preconstruction are preserved or explicitly revised before execution. 6. Compliance Management Support integration of prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements, domestic content, FEOC, safety, QA/QC, and other compliance-related obligations into bid packages, contract exhibits, contractor expectations, and execution planning. Help ensure compliance-related contractual requirements are documented, traceable, and properly incorporated into contract packages and handoff documentation. Coordinate with Compliance, Legal, Project Management, Procurement, and other stakeholders to surface gaps early and support clean implementation through execution. Remain capable of understanding policy changes, regulatory changes, incentive-program changes, and evolving compliance requirements, and incorporate those changes into scope definition, Basis of Estimate assumptions, contract exhibits, and execution planning as needed. 7. Risk Management Maintain project risk registers and support alignment with project execution plans, owner-provided information, design basis, contractor proposals, and commercial terms. Identify, document, and communicate scope, schedule, design, procurement, budget, compliance, and contractual risks early enough to support mitigation rather than reaction. Ensure project scope and design basis are sufficiently defined to be priced, negotiated, engineered, and built prior to full preconstruction commitment. Evaluate site conditions, client goals, utility requirements, permitting constraints, package completeness, and other deal elements that may affect constructability, contract strategy, budget, and schedule. Support consistent application of approved business and risk positions and ensure prompt escalation of material departures from standard terms or expected project assumptions. Where appropriate, support integrated delivery strategies that bring contractors or trade partners into the process early enough to reduce uncertainty, advance design coordination, and improve schedule confidence. 8. Document Management Maintain disciplined document control across RFP documents, bid sheets, estimate files, scope summaries, exhibits, decision logs, approval records, execution copies, and handoff packages. Ensure finalized documents are stored accurately and consistently in Procore and other approved repositories. Promote document consistency across departments through standard forms, naming conventions, organized records, repeatable workflows, and version control discipline. Preserve continuity from development assumptions to estimate, contract value, project budget, and execution reality through strong documentation and traceability. Technical / Commercial Standards Strong understanding of multiple project delivery methodologies, including Design-Bid-Build, Design-Build, Integrated Design-Build, CMAR, and related commercial implications. Ability to translate delivery methodology into risk allocation, contract formation, scope definition, bid packaging, procurement strategy, and execution planning. Understanding of job costing methodologies and budget architecture sufficient to set projects up for accurate cost tracking, forecasting, contingency control, and execution reporting. Ability to create, review, or manage logic-based schedules with enough rigor to identify critical path risks and schedule-driven commercial exposure. Ability to review estimates and commercial packages with Basis of Estimate discipline. Ability to evaluate constructability, design maturity, scope completeness, and package readiness for pricing and contracting. Ability to support commercial negotiations with an understanding of how T&Cs, SOW, specifications, assumptions, exclusions, schedule commitments, procurement strategy, cost codes, and cost types interact. Behavioral / Judgment Standards This role is expected to: Protect relationships while protecting Pivot’s commercial and operational interests; Operate effectively when facts are incomplete and risk must still be assessed; Distinguish facts, assumptions, interpretations, risks, and unresolved issues; Use process, documentation, and decision logs as control mechanisms; Escalate risk early rather than late; Make commercially and operationally sound recommendations, not just administrative observations; Maintain professionalism, clarity, and discipline during fast-moving bid turns and negotiations; Preserve continuity from estimate to contract to project handoff without loss of intent or information; Manage predictable, repeatable delivery outcomes through structure, judgment, and follow-through. REQUIRED COMPETENCIES 3–7 years of relevant experience in estimating, cost analysis, preconstruction, project management, commercial management, or related delivery functions supporting commercial solar and/or BESS projects. Experience leading field diligence efforts, coordinating site assessment teams, and managing development-phase due diligence activities for corporate pipeline, community solar, commercial solar, and energy storage projects. Experience participating in contractor engagement, bid review, cost evaluation, or contract review workflows. Ability to understand technical documentation related to renewable energy projects, including drawings, specifications, interconnection materials, utility requirements, permitting documents, civil and electrical scopes, and commercial exhibits. Experience evaluating subcontractor and vendor bid packages. Working knowledge of project management software, job costing software, ERP platforms, and related workflows used to support budget setup, cost control, forecasting, and reporting. Ability to work with reporting tools, dashboards, and basic analytics needed to evaluate project cost, schedule, and commercial information. Strong organizational capacity to manage multiple opportunities with competing deadlines and shifting priorities. Strong communication and interpersonal skills. Ability to work independently and cross-fun