Senior Cost Engineer - Cost Control and Reporting (On-site) - Corsicana, TX or Sweetwater, TX

The role

The Senior Cost Engineer will support construction cost management for large-scale data center and mission-critical projects. This role involves detailed cost work, testing assumptions, validating forecasts, and communicating cost exposure to project teams and clients.

What you will do

• Review contractor pay applications, invoices, and cost submissions for accuracy and contract compliance.
• Review Schedule of Values submissions to identify front-loading or payment risk.
• Evaluate change orders and contractor cost proposals for entitlement and pricing reasonableness.
• Maintain cost reports, change logs, trend logs, contingency logs, and exposure registers.
• Build, review, and validate Estimate at Completion forecasts.
• Prepare and update cash flow forecasts and reconcile spending against actual costs.
• Track budget movement, commitments, expenditures, accruals, and approved changes.
• Identify cost variances and communicate implications to project teams and stakeholders.
• Support monthly reporting through cost narratives, risk summaries, and variance analysis.
• Coordinate with project managers, contractors, and finance teams to resolve discrepancies.

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in cost engineering, cost control, project controls, construction cost management, or related roles.
• Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Civil Engineering, Quantity Surveying, Engineering, Finance, Accounting, Engineering Management, or a related technical field.
• Hands-on cost engineering execution experience.
• Practical construction or EPC cost management experience.
• Strong knowledge of cost management principles including budgeting, forecasting, EAC development, and variance analysis.
• Strong hands-on experience reviewing pay applications, invoices, Schedule of Values, and change orders.
• Commercial judgment to challenge cost data and identify risk.
• Ability to communicate cost risk and recommendations to leadership and stakeholders.
• Strong analytical discipline with practical construction cost awareness.
• Experience maintaining cost reports, change logs, trend logs, and forecast models.
• Collaborative interface with project management, construction management, and finance.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Office Suite.

Nice to have

• Experience supporting data centers, mission-critical, infrastructure, EPC, industrial, advanced manufacturing, semiconductor, or other large capital projects.
• Experience with hyperscale data center construction or MEP-heavy construction programs.
• Experience with Earned Value Management, integrated cost-schedule-risk analysis, cash flow forecasting, and risk-adjusted forecasting.
• Professional certification such as Certified Cost Professional, Certified Cost Technician, PMP, PMI-SP, RICS, AACE, or equivalent.
• Advanced experience with SAP, Power BI, Primavera P6, Oracle, or other project controls, ERP, dashboarding, or reporting platforms.
• Experience supporting claims analysis, closeout, retention release, allowance reconciliation, and unresolved change resolution.

About the company

Decima International is a professional services company providing project management and controls services to clients in the United States and the Middle East.