Sr. Cost Control Engineer

The role

We are hiring a Cost Control Engineer to own the cost baseline, the forecast, and change control on Mariana's capital projects.

You will build the cost breakdown structure, convert the sanctioned estimate into a control budget, track commitments and actuals, and produce the forecast at completion that the business plans against. The role sits between engineering, procurement, construction, and finance — the path where a commitment becomes an accrual becomes an invoice becomes a capitalized asset — and your job is to make sure the number is the same in all four places. Cost control here is not a monthly report assembled by hand. The reporting is expected to come out of the system and building that pipeline is as much the job as running it.

What you'll do

• Set the baseline. Build the WBS and cost breakdown structure with the planner and estimator, convert the sanctioned estimate into a control budget, and lock it

• Track commitments and actuals. Purchase orders, subcontracts, change orders, and field costs, reconciled to the ERP every month with no unexplained variance

• Forecast. Maintain estimate to complete and estimate at completion by control account, with the basis for each forecast written down rather than carried in your head

• Measure earned value. Set rules of credit with the planner, measure physical progress, and report cost and schedule performance at a level where someone can act on it

• Run the trend and change process. Identify potential changes early, quantify them, route them for approval, and keep the approved budget log clean

• Manage contingency drawdown. Track contingency and management reserve against the risk register and report what is left honestly

• Produce cash flow. Maintain the project cash flow and funding curve for finance and treasury

• Verify payments. Review contractor invoices and progress claims against measured progress and contract terms

• Report. Create, issue and present the project cost report and the dashboards leadership actually opens

• Automate the pipeline. Cost data should move from the ERP, procurement, and the schedule into the report/dashboard without re-keying. Build the connections, the reconciliations, and the exception checks that catch a bad number before a person does

Desired qualifications

• Education. BS in engineering, construction management, finance, or a related field

• Experience. 5–12 years of project cost control on capital projects in mining, minerals, refining, chemicals, power, or heavy civil. Senior candidates will have owned cost on a project above $100M total installed cost

• Earned value in practice. You have applied earned value management on a live project, not only in training, and can describe where it broke down

• Systems. Hands-on with a project cost management system such as EcoSys, InEight, Prism, or Procore, and with an ERP such as SAP, Oracle, or NetSuite

• Data fluency. Advanced Excel, plus SQL, Power BI, or Python at a level where you build your own reporting instead of requesting it

• Change discipline. You have run a trend and change management process end to end and can say what you would do differently

• Accounting interface. Comfortable with commitments versus actuals, accruals, capitalization, and funding authorization mechanics

• Certification. AACE Certified Cost Professional or Certified Cost Technician, or PMI credentials, are a plus

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