Distribution Portfolio Review Engineer

The role

This person will review, validate, and coordinate electric distribution capital projects for a major utility client. They will evaluate project scopes, estimates, schedules, and budgets to ensure alignment with portfolio priorities.

What you will do

• Review proposed electric distribution capital projects for technical justification and alignment with portfolio objectives.
• Review engineering estimates for accuracy and consistency with project scope.
• Evaluate project scopes and documentation to identify missing information, inconsistencies, and execution risks.
• Review project change requests and evaluate their impact on the capital portfolio.
• Reconcile proposed project changes against approved portfolio plans and budgets.
• Work with project sponsors to understand project needs and technical requirements.
• Support evaluation of project need dates to determine if schedules and budgets are realistic.
• Coordinate with stakeholders to resolve project-review comments and close information gaps.
• Identify opportunities to coordinate or modify projects to reduce duplicated scope.
• Support capital planning and portfolio-review meetings by preparing analyses and summaries.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical, Mechanical, Civil Engineering, or a related engineering discipline from an ABET-accredited program.
• 3+ years of relevant experience in electric utility engineering, distribution engineering, project development, capital planning, portfolio management, project management, or a related technical role.
• Working knowledge of electric distribution infrastructure and utility capital-project development.
• Ability to review and evaluate engineering scopes, estimates, schedules, budgets, and project documentation.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with high attention to detail.
• Ability to identify inconsistencies, gaps, risks, and dependencies across multiple projects and data sources.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple project reviews and priorities simultaneously.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively with engineering, planning, operations, project management, project controls, finance, and other utility stakeholders.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel and other standard business and project-management applications.
• Ability to travel approximately 10–20%, depending on project assignment and client needs.

Nice to have

• Experience supporting electric distribution capital programs for an investor-owned utility or utility consulting organization.
• Experience reviewing distribution project scopes, engineering estimates, project change requests, schedules, budgets, or capital-project documentation.
• Experience with distribution asset replacement, reliability, system improvement, capacity, resiliency, or modernization programs.
• Experience supporting multi-year capital plans or large portfolios of utility projects.
• Experience with project prioritization, capital allocation, project initiation, or stage-gate review processes.
• Experience supporting regulatory or rate-filing activities.
• Familiarity with utility financial, project-management, engineering, asset-management, or portfolio-management systems.
• Engineer-in-Training (EIT) certification or Professional Engineer (PE) license

Benefits

• Strong compensation
• Full benefits
• 401(k) match

About the company

CARIAN is a purpose-driven, woman-owned consulting and advisory firm dedicated exclusively to the power sector. They partner with leading electric and gas utilities to provide strategic advisory and disciplined execution.