Utilities Project Manager Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

1. Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the primary project-level coordination lead across internal teams and external delivery partners.
• Maintain alignment among Preconstruction, Engineering, Construction Management, Procurement, Accounting, Legal, Compliance, Project Finance, Asset Management, Revenue Operations, O&M, EPC contractors, utilities, AHJs, OE, and IE.
• Lead regular project working sessions, health reviews, lookaheads, milestone coordination meetings, and issue-resolution meetings.
• Ensure stakeholders understand current project status, forecast dates, financial exposure, required decisions, and open risks.
• Escalate aged decisions, unresolved cross-functional conflicts, and issues that threaten cost, schedule, quality, or commercial outcomes.
• Preserve continuity from preconstruction assumptions and negotiated contract positions into live project execution.
• Coordinate APMs, coordinators, consultants, and external partners to support clean execution and timely issue closure.

2. Contract Management

• Administer Prime EPC agreements, sub-EPC agreements, purchase orders, exhibits, notice provisions, milestone obligations, and change management requirements.
• Understand how contract terms, scope exhibits, specifications, schedule commitments, owner obligations, payment mechanics, and relief provisions interact in execution.
• Issue, track, and preserve formal notices in accordance with contractual requirements and Delegation of Authority.
• Manage change events, change orders, claims support, and commercial issue resolution with appropriate internal review and escalation.
• Coordinate with Legal and leadership on disputed scope, entitlement positions, contractor nonperformance, schedule relief requests, and material deviations from negotiated terms.
• Maintain disciplined contract logs, issue logs, deviation trackers, and records needed to support enforceable project administration.
• Ensure preconstruction handoff items, scope clarifications, negotiated assumptions, and unresolved commercial risks are actively managed in execution.

3. Quality Management

• Ensure project quality expectations are translated from contract and design documents into execution controls.
• Coordinate with Construction Management, Quality, Engineering, EPCs, and vendors to manage submittals, inspections, testing, punch, NCRs, and closeout requirements.
• Support constructability awareness throughout execution and identify quality risks before they turn into rework, delay, or warranty exposure.
• Ensure major material warranties, turnover packages, commissioning records, test reports, and required as-built and acceptance documentation are complete and traceable.
• Support disciplined preparation for Mechanical Completion, Substantial Completion, Final Completion, and performance and capacity testing milestones.
• Reinforce the expectation that quality is a control mechanism, not a cleanup activity at the end of the job.

• Own project-level financial control within approved authority, including budget management, commitment alignment, change-event forecasting, contingency usage, and cost-to-complete forecasting.
• Maintain clear visibility into project budget, cost exposure, projected final cost, and pending commercial decisions.
• Manage Estimate-to-Complete, Cost-to-Complete, Estimate at Completion, cash flow awareness, and forecast updates in accordance with company standards.
• Work across Procore, Sage Intacct, Salesforce, Power BI, and related reporting tools to maintain the single source of truth for project financial data.
• Review invoices, pay applications, lien-waiver alignment, milestone backup, and commercial support for payment processing.
• Ensure budget changes, change events, and contingency draws are documented with clear issue, cause, impact, options, resolution, and timing logic.
• Protect continuity from approved contract value to live execution budget to final project closeout.
• Understand job costing methodologies, cost codes, cost types, budget alignment, and the relationship between project controls and portfolio reporting.

5. Schedule Management

• Develop, maintain, review, and manage baselined CPM or logic-based schedules for assigned projects.
• Ensure schedule logic reflects execution reality, procurement durations, engineering dependencies, utility constraints, permitting timing, access constraints, commissioning sequencing, and contractual milestone obligations.
• Lead 3-week lookaheads and near-term coordination reviews to drive predictable field and stakeholder execution.
• Identify critical path risk, out-of-sequence work, milestone slippage, and secondary impacts early enough to influence outcomes.
• Coordinate schedule recovery planning where required and evaluate the schedule implications of design changes, delays, procurement constraints, and contractor performance issues.
• Preserve the distinction between contract dates, internal forecast dates, and risk-adjusted operational dates.
• Ensure schedule assumptions remain traceable from preconstruction handoff through project completion and closeout.

6. Compliance Management

• Ensure execution activities support documented compliance obligations, including safety, environmental requirements, PWA, Domestic Content, FEOC, QA/QC, and funding-related documentation.
• Coordinate with Compliance, Legal, Project Finance, Accounting, Construction Management, and contractors to surface and address compliance gaps early.
• Ensure compliance requirements are translated into execution behaviors, documentation requests, milestone readiness, and payment support.
• Track project documentation required for audits, lender or investor review, closeout, and long-term asset support.
• Adapt project controls and execution expectations when policy, funding, or compliance requirements change.
• Support clean turnover of compliance-related records to downstream stakeholders.

7. Risk Management

• Maintain a proactive, quantified project risk register with clear mitigations, owners, timing, and escalation thresholds.
• Distinguish facts, assumptions, interpretations, active issues, unresolved risks, and probable exposures.
• Identify and escalate scope, schedule, budget, procurement, utility, permitting, compliance, quality, and contractor-performance risks early.
• Use change events and issue logs as control mechanisms to forecast known cost and schedule movement before formal change orders are complete.
• Evaluate second-order impacts, including effects on financing, turnover timing, revenue start, counterparties, and stakeholder confidence.
• Support disciplined decision-making under incomplete information.
• Protect the business without losing sight of long-term partner relationships and execution practicality.

8. Document Management

• Maintain disciplined project records across contracts, schedules, budgets, commitments, submittals, notices, change events, change orders, turnover files, compliance documentation, and closeout packages.
• Ensure Procore and approved systems are accurate, current, and usable as the operative record.
• Protect version control, naming conventions, dashboard accuracy, and traceability of decisions and approvals.
• Ensure project records preserve continuity from contract execution through turnover and internal closeout.
• Support reliable portfolio reporting by maintaining clean, timely, and complete project data.
• Ensure project documentation supports financing, audit, warranty, asset management, and internal governance needs.

9. Behavioral / Judgment Standards

• Cultivate and Protect relationships while protecting Pivot's business interests.
• Operate effectively when facts are incomplete and timing still matters.
• Distinguish facts from assumptions, interpretations, and noise.
• Use process, documentation, and system discipline as control mechanisms.
• Escalate risk early rather than late.
• Preserve continuity from preconstruction handoff to final closeout.
• Make commercially and operationally sound recommendations rather than only reporting activity.
• Maintain composure and clarity under deadline pressure and stakeholder friction.
• Influence outcomes without needing formal authority over every participant.
• Recognize when collaboration, escalation, or firmness is required.
• Hold a high bar for data hygiene, documentation quality, and follow-through.
• Support predictable, consistent, and reliable delivery outcomes

• Strong understanding of owner-side IPP project delivery across PV, PV plus BESS, DG, C&I, or similar infrastructure execution environments.
• Ability to manage project execution from handoff through turnover using structured control mechanisms rather than informal follow-up.
• Ability to create, interpret, and manage CPM or logic-based schedules with sufficient rigor to identify critical path risk, sequence exposure, and recovery options.
• Ability to manage project financial controls including budget ownership, forecast discipline, contingency management, budget changes, cost forecasting, and EAC reporting.
• Strong contract administration capability, including notice provisions, commercial entitlements, milestone requirements, relief analysis, and change order processing.
• Working knowledge of how engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, testing, and turnover activities interrelate commercially and operationally.
• Ability to operate effectively in Procore, Sage Intacct, Salesforce, Power BI, and related project-controls systems.
• Ability to coordinate submittals, turnover documentation, QA/QC records, testing readiness, warranties, and closeout requirements.
• Ability to integrate safety, quality, and compliance obligations into live project execution rather than treating them as separate workstreams.
• Ability to understand cost code structure, job costing methodologies, and the relationship between project budget setup and downstream execution controls.
• Ability to influence outcomes without dictating contractor means and methods.
• Ability to support predictable, repeatable project outcomes through disciplined use of process, documentation, meetings, and escalation.
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Business, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Demonstrated experience in project management, construction management, project controls, or equivalent execution roles within renewable energy, infrastructure, or comparable project-based environments.
• Ability to manage multiple internal and external stakeholders through active project execution.
• Working knowledge of contract administration, change management, job costing, forecasting, and risk control.
• Experience using project controls or ERP systems such as Procore, Sage Intacct, Salesforce, Power BI, or similar tools.
• Ability to read and work from drawings, specifications, commercial exhibits, schedules, and execution plans.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to maintain control of detail across multiple ac...