Senior Engineer - Planning
AECOMAECOM is hiring in Abu Dhabi for a Senior Planning Engineer to join its infrastructure project team onsite. This is a full-time role within a global infrastructure consultancy that aims to improve how communities move, live and grow. The firm operates with a worldwide network of more than 50,000 professionals including planners, designers, engineers, scientists, digital specialists and project managers who collaborate to tackle large-scale challenges and leave lasting legacies.
Based in Abu Dhabi, the role sits at the heart of major infrastructure delivery, offering the chance to shape schedules, monitor performance and work with a broad set of stakeholders to keep complex programmes on track. It’s suited to someone who enjoys turning plans into concrete actions and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams to drive progress.
As a Senior Planning Engineer, you’ll be embedded in the project team and responsible for translating project scope into robust time schedules, tracking progress against baselines, and highlighting risks and mitigation options. If you thrive on data, clear reporting and cross‑disciplinary coordination, this role could be a strong match.
The daily planning rhythm on a big infrastructure project
In this role you’ll develop, review and monitor the contractor’s baseline programme, recovery plans and periodic updates, ensuring schedules are logic-linked, properly resource-loaded and aligned with the project scope and contractual requirements. You’ll keep a close eye on actual progress, flag delays and critical activities, and shape regular progress updates that show planned versus actual performance and look-ahead forecasts.
Collaboration is key: you’ll coordinate with the Resident Engineer, discipline engineers, inspectors and the contractor’s planning team to obtain accurate progress information and verify reported quantities against on-site status. You’ll produce and review weekly and monthly progress reports and look ahead programmes, including 2-week, 3-week and 4-week look-ahead schedules as required, and you’ll maintain progress dashboards and key performance indicators for the project management team and client.
You’ll also assess the critical path, float and programme logic, and you’ll review the contractor’s recovery and mitigation initiatives to judge their effectiveness in addressing delays. Along the way, you’ll monitor interfaces across design, procurement, construction, testing, commissioning and authority approvals, and you’ll help identify programme risks, constraints and potential delays so the project management team can plan effectively. When delays occur, you’ll assist in reviewing Extension of Time submissions, delay events and time-related claims, including the underlying time impact analyses.
What you’ll need to bring to the project
Here’s what the role requires in terms of qualifications and experience:
- A bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, construction management, project management or a related field
- Seven years or more of planning and scheduling experience on infrastructure and construction projects
- Strong knowledge of Primavera P6 and Microsoft Excel
- A solid grasp of baseline programmes, schedule updates, critical path analysis, resource loading, progress measurement and delay analysis
- Experience reviewing contractor programmes and progress reports
- Ability to work effectively with multidisciplinary project teams and contractors
- Strong analytical, communication, coordination and reporting skills
Desirable extras that would help your application include:
- UAE infrastructure project experience is an advantage
- Experience with EOT, delay analysis, recovery programmes and time impact analysis
What this role offers in pay and perks
The position is onsite in Abu Dhabi and full-time. An in-person Day 1 onboarding at an AECOM office location is required for new hires. AECOM provides a broad benefits package that may include medical, dental and vision cover, life and disability protection, paid time off and leaves, voluntary benefits, flexible work options, wellbeing resources and an employee assistance programme, along with travel insurance, service recognition awards, a retirement savings plan and an employee stock purchase plan, subject to eligibility. As a Fortune 500 firm, AECOM reported revenue of $16.1 billion in fiscal year 2025. The company remains a global leader in infrastructure, offering opportunities to work on projects that span water, environment, energy, transportation and buildings, with a focus on growing your technical and leadership capabilities within a collaborative, respectful workplace.
Guidance for applicants on this project
Tip 1: Put Primavera P6 expertise and your scheduling leadership up front on your resume. Lead with your most relevant project controls experience, especially on infrastructure or construction programmes.
Tip 2: Show your ability to prove you’ve got the must-have skills. Cite a project where you reviewed a contractor’s programme and progress reports, demonstrated your baseline updates and your analysis of critical path and delays.
Tip 3: Be ready to talk through concrete examples in interviews. Describe how you’ve prepared 2-week, 3-week and 4-week look-ahead programmes and how you’ve used those plans to drive progress and mitigate delays.
Tip 4: Ask a smart question about how the project management team uses dashboards and KPIs to steer decisions. For instance, you could ask how progress dashboards are maintained and how time-impact and EOT analyses feed into time-related claims decisions.