Technical Director – Major Water Infrastructure Programme
Location: Amman, Jordan
Assignment: 4 years
Anticipated Start: January 2027
Reports to: Project Director
Language: Fluent English
The Company
Our client is a major international engineering and construction group with operations spanning the Middle East, Africa, North America and other international markets.
The organisation has an established track record delivering complex, large-scale infrastructure, industrial and commercial developments. Its portfolio spans water and wastewater treatment, desalination, transportation, rail, energy, industrial facilities and major landmark developments.
The group maintains a multi-billion-dollar international project backlog and has delivered water and wastewater infrastructure with combined treatment capacity exceeding 15 million m³ per day.
The Project
The successful candidate will join the leadership team delivering one of the Middle East's largest and most strategically important water security and infrastructure programmes, with an investment value of approximately US$6 billion.
Located in Jordan, the programme combines a major reverse-osmosis seawater desalination facility with approximately 450 km of large-scale water transmission infrastructure, together with major pumping and storage facilities and associated power and renewable-energy infrastructure.
The project is being delivered by an international consortium under a long-term concession structure and will provide a major new source of potable water to several million people.
The Role
The Technical Director will report to the Project Director and assume overall leadership of the project's technical and engineering functions, ensuring compliance with contractual requirements and providing the link between design, procurement and construction.
The role will lead a multidisciplinary engineering organisation across the project's major infrastructure and process components.
Key Responsibilities
- Overall responsibility for ensuring the technical compliance of the project with the Contract.
- Lead the overall design process, including Basic Design, Detailed Design, As-Built documentation and Operation & Maintenance manuals.
- Plan and lead construction methodology development, ensuring proposed construction tools, methods and processes are technically appropriate.
- Supervise and coordinate Design Managers and the wider Design & Engineering Team.
- Lead design coordination meetings and establish an effective project engineering organisation.
- Establish design budgets, monitor variances and contribute to coordination across the Project Management Team.
- Establish procedures for design and document control, project reviews, technical meetings, clarifications and design changes.
- Drive design optimisation to achieve cost-effective and programme-efficient construction solutions.
- Identify deviations and implement appropriate corrective actions.
- Manage technical interfaces between engineering offices, designers, independent checkers, authorities, consortium partners and client representatives.
- Define technical staffing and resource requirements and lead recruitment and management of the project technical team.
- Assess and monitor design and engineering risks that could affect contractual milestones.
- Manage subcontracted engineering organisations, checking consultants, construction drawings, methodologies, material requisitions and technical non-conformities.
- Establish and manage design deliverable schedules, inspections, testing requirements, standards libraries, as-built procedures and final technical documentation.
- Lead the project's engineering roadmap, design milestones, engineering checks, change requests, construction drawing verification and technical hold points.
- Provide regular technical reporting and recommendations to the Project Director and senior project leadership.
Required Competencies & Skills
- Technical leadership of multidisciplinary design and engineering functions on major EPC infrastructure projects.
- Strong design coordination, interface management, constructability and engineering-review capability.
- Experience managing engineering budgets, programme milestones and technical risk.
- Knowledge of document control, standards, inspections, testing, as-built documentation and final technical files.
- Ability to coordinate effectively with clients, consultants, independent checkers, authorities, construction teams and subcontracted design organisations.
- Strong understanding of the relationship between engineering, procurement, construction methodology and project delivery.
Required Experience
- Senior Technical Director, Engineering Director, Design Director or equivalent experience on major EPC or Design & Build infrastructure programmes.
- Significant experience managing multidisciplinary engineering and design teams.
- Practical experience optimising design and construction methodologies on major Design & Build contracts.
- Experience in one or more of the following is particularly relevant:
- Large-scale desalination / SWRO facilities
- Long-distance water transmission pipelines
- Major pumping stations and reservoirs
- Integrated water supply and conveyance schemes
- Water or wastewater treatment plants
- Hydropower or major hydraulic infrastructure
- Oil & gas pipelines and pumping/compressor stations
- Industrial or process plants
- Major power or energy infrastructure
- Strong process plant and electromechanical equipment experience.
- Previous experience on major international projects in the Middle East or comparable markets would be advantageous.
