Project Controller I
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Seeking a Project Controller I
Position Summary
The Project Controller I supports project managers and leadership by maintaining reliable project plans, forecasts, resource schedules, cost information, and performance reporting. This position works across engineering consulting projects to help ensure that budgets, schedules, staffing plans, costs, and contractual authorizations are accurately reflected in the company’s project management system (Unanet).
The Project Controller I will partner with Project Managers, Project Controls, Project Accounting, and Finance to identify project exceptions, improve forecast accuracy, support consistent project setup, and provide timely information for decision-making. The ideal candidate is analytical, organized, comfortable working with project financial data, and able to communicate clearly with both technical and financial teams.
Key Responsibilities
- Support consistent project setup, including WBS structure, budgets, labor plans, billing rates, allocation codes, project dates, and task dates.
- Confirm project setup agrees with approved budget, level-of-effort, fee, contract, and amendment information.
- Assist Project Managers with maintaining current estimates to complete, resource plans, staffing assumptions, and project schedules.
- Review actual and scheduled costs for missing budgets, incorrect coding, unsupported charges, and other project exceptions.
- Compare actual costs and remaining forecasts with approved project budgets.
- Monitor material changes in EAC, ETC, forecasted profit, labor hours, and project completion dates.
- Prepare project exception reports and supporting information for monthly Project Manager reviews.
- Monitor T&M–NTE and task-order projects for remaining authorization, forecasted cap dates, and potential overruns.
- Track subcontractor commitments, invoices, remaining forecasts, and completed work that may not yet be invoiced.
- Support the identification and tracking of additional services, pending amendments, at-risk work, and work performed without authorization.
- Document forecast decisions and follow through on required updates and corrections.
- Assist with project dashboards, KPI reporting, data validation, and trend analysis.
- Maintain project controls logs, templates, work instructions, and supporting documentation.
- Help develop and improve standardized Project Controls and Unanet processes.
- Provide responsive, service-oriented support to Project Managers and other internal stakeholders.
- Escalate unresolved budget, forecast, coding, authorization, or contract-cap issues to the appropriate owner.
- Support additional project accounting functions on an as-needed basis.
- Additional tasks may develop and existing tasks may change as Plummer grows.
Minimum Qualifications
- Three to five years of experience in project controls, project coordination, project finance, project accounting, PMO support, or a closely related project delivery function.
- Experience reviewing project budgets, actual costs, forecasts, schedules, or resource plans.
- Strong Excel skills, including formulas, lookups, pivot tables, filtering, and reconciliation of data from multiple sources.
- Ability to identify inconsistencies, investigate their causes, and communicate findings clearly.
- Strong attention to detail and ability to manage multiple projects and deadlines.
- Effective written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to work collaboratively with Project Managers, accountants, finance professionals, and operational leaders.
- Ability to learn and consistently apply project setup, forecasting, and reporting standards.
- Experience supporting fixed-fee/lump sum, T&M, on-call, or task-order contracts.
- Experience with Unanet or another project-based ERP, accounting, scheduling, or resource-planning system.
- Experience with Power BI or other dashboard and reporting tools.
- Familiarity with project schedules, WBS development, resource planning, contract amendments, subcontractor commitments, and change management.
- Experience in engineering consulting, architecture, construction, environmental services, or another project-based professional-services environment.
Preferred Qualifications
- Working understanding of earned value management concepts, including planned value, earned value, actual cost, CPI, SPI, ETC, EAC, and variance analysis.
- College Degree in Finance, Business, or Project Management, however additional work experience may supplement degree requirements.
Core Competencies
- Analytical thinking
- Extreme attention to detail
- Project financial awareness
- Data accuracy and reconciliation
- Forecasting and planning support
- Problem identification and follow-through
- Clear communication
- Process discipline
- Organization and prioritization
- Collaborative service mindset
- Continuous improvement
Initial Measures of Success
Within the first six months, the Project Controls Coordinator will be expected to:
- Learn Plummer’s project lifecycle, contract types, financial terminology, and Unanet processes.
- Support assigned Project Managers with consistent monthly project reviews.
- Improve the accuracy and completeness of resource plans, ETCs, project dates, and project coding.
- Identify and track missing budgets, unbudgeted costs, stale forecasts, authorization concerns, and other project exceptions.
- Produce reliable project-control reports with minimal supervision.
- Develop strong working relationships with Project Managers, Project Accounting, Finance, and operational leadership.
- Contribute to the documentation and improvement of Project Controls standards and workflows.