Senior Substation Constructability & Quality Review Specialist

Leidos is seeking an experienced field operations professional to support engineering quality reviews and constructability reviews for high-voltage and EHV substation design packages. This role is ideal for someone who has spent their career in the field — leading crews, maintaining equipment, and troubleshooting live systems — and now wants to bring that hands-on judgment to the front end of project design, catching issues before they become costly problems in the field. This position sits within our EPC Solutions group, part of the Power Delivery Solutions division, supporting consulting and EPC delivery for investor-owned and public utility clients nationwide.

Design & Constructability Review

• Perform constructability reviews of substation physical and P&C design packages, identifying field-impractical details, sequencing conflicts, and access/clearance issues before construction.
• Review designs for accessibility, equipment clearances, installation requirements, maintenance access, equipment removal/replacement, vehicle and crane access, cable installation, temporary facilities, and construction means and methods.
• Conduct quality reviews of engineering drawing deliverables (one-lines, physical layouts, panel schedules, wiring diagrams, grounding, etc.) to flag errors, omissions, and conflicts based on real-world installation and maintenance experience.
• Identify design conditions that could create unnecessary field labor, rework, difficult installation, operational constraints, safety concerns, or long-term maintenance challenges.
• Identify design features that may create unnecessary operational complexity or maintenance burden.
• Review bills of materials for completeness, accuracy, and alignment with actual field installation needs.
• Review construction sequencing plans and construction schedules for feasibility, identifying gaps between the design intent and how the work will actually be built and energized.

Brownfield & Energized Substation Work

• Provide field-informed recommendations for brownfield construction where work must occur adjacent to or within existing energized substations.
• Draw on extensive brownfield substation experience — phased construction, equipment replacement, temporary configurations, and constrained outages — to inform design and planning decisions.
• Support outage planning and evaluate proposed solutions to unforeseen construction conditions in live or partially energized environments.

Field Support & Knowledge Transfer

• Provide technical field support during construction, outages, commissioning, and energization when required.
• Assist project teams in resolving field questions and evaluating proposed solutions to unforeseen construction conditions.
• Provide lessons learned from field failures, equipment maintenance, emergency repairs, and troubleshooting activities to improve engineering designs.
• Participate in site walks, constructability reviews, pre-construction meetings, and outage planning meetings.
• Flag design elements likely to cause safety, maintenance, or operational challenges once the substation is in service.

Collaboration & Mentorship

• Participate in design review meetings and job-site visits, serving as the “voice of the field” alongside engineering staff.
• Coordinate with project engineers, project managers, and construction teams to resolve identified issues.
• Document review findings, comments, and recommendations in a clear, trackable format.
• Mentor junior staff on practical field considerations in design and construction planning.

• 10+ years of hands-on experience in substation or transmission operations, construction, or maintenance — e.g., leading construction crews, performing equipment maintenance, or troubleshooting during outages.
• No engineering degree required; equivalent field experience and demonstrated technical judgment substitute for formal education.
• Experience at 138 kV, 230 kV, 345 kV, 500 kV, or higher voltage levels.
• Experience leading construction or maintenance crews in energized substations.
• Extensive brownfield substation experience involving phased construction, equipment replacement, temporary configurations, and constrained outages.
• Working knowledge of substation physical layouts, major equipment (transformers, breakers, switches, relays, control panels), and construction sequencing.
• Ability to read and critically assess engineering drawings, bills of materials, and construction schedules.
• Familiarity with industry standards and safety codes (NESC, OSHA, NEC) as applied in the field.
• Strong communication skills, comfortable providing direct, constructive feedback to design engineers.
• Ability to travel to job sites and client locations as needed.
• Proficiency with MS Office; comfort with drawing review/markup tools (e.g., Bluebeam) is a plus.

• Direct experience with HV/EHV substation construction or maintenance at 345 kV and above.
• Journeyman or foreman-level background in electrical construction, relay technician work, or substation maintenance.
• Experience supporting EPC or Progressive Design-Build project delivery.
• Prior involvement in formal QA/QC review processes.
• Exposure to renewable generation interconnection projects.

The hourly pay range for this consulting position will be between $60 - 90 USD/hour.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.