Senior Civil Design Engineer

What's Awesome About Our Client?

• 100% employee-owned (ESOP) civil engineering firm that's been a fixture in Bozeman for decades
• Big enough to have real support, bench strength, and a water resources group down the hall, but small enough that you're not a badge number.
• Leadership that actually means it when they say "we empower people."

Why This Job — Senior Civil Design Engineer

If you love the design work (the actual engineering, the Civil 3D, the watching a subdivision come together on a plan set) this is one of the rare seats where that's the whole point. You're not being hired to eventually stop doing the work. You're being hired because you're good at it and you want to keep getting better. You'll spend roughly 75% of your day in core engineering: plan sets, spec manuals, reports, modeling, calcs, and 3D grading. The rest goes to client touchpoints and mentoring the younger engineers coming up behind you, on whatever pace feels right.

You get real ownership early. Your name goes on your stamp, your judgment gets respected, and you run projects start to finish instead of being handed one narrow slice. The work is diverse (subdivisions, roads, water, sewer, storm) and the project mix changes enough that you're not doing the same thing forever. The firm leans about 80–90% private sector, so you'll be solving real-world developer and client problems on actual timelines, not grinding through a decade of floodplain monitoring.

Management genuinely empowers people rather than micromanaging them, and the firm is small enough (~35) that you'll know everyone, but big enough that you've got real backup when a project gets heavy. You're employee-owned (ESOP), so the equity you build compounds just by doing good work over time. Schedule is big on work-life balance to avoid burnout. Standard 8 to 5 with flexibility, rare weekends, no "hero" culture. And Bozeman is Bozeman: mountains out the window, trout in the river, and a quality of life that most engineers at bigger firms are still dreaming about.

What You'll Actually Do:

• Run real civil projects (subdivisions, roads, water, sewer, and storm) from concept through a constructible plan set, largely on your own two feet.
• Live in AutoCAD Civil 3D for 50–75% of your day: design, 3D grading, surface modeling, and plan production.
• Prepare specification manuals, engineering reports, calculations, estimates, and permitting documentation.
• Stamp your own work (PE required) and take real ownership of what goes out the door.
• Talk to clients directly — pick up the phone, sit in the meeting, answer the question. You're not sheltered from client contact here, and you shouldn't want to be.
• Help train and delegate to the 0–5 year engineers coming up behind you, without turning into a full-time manager.
• Occasionally write proposals and support business development on smaller pursuits.

What You Bring:

• Roughly 6–12 years of civil engineering design experience
• PE license — you need to be able to stamp your own work.
• Genuine AutoCAD Civil 3D fluency. This is not a "I can open it" role; it's a "I design in it every day" role.
• Working knowledge of subdivision design, roads, water/sewer/storm systems, and 3D grading with surfaces.
• Background at a smaller or mid-sized firm is a plus — the client has found that battle-tested generalists tend to fit their culture better than folks coming out of deep specialty seats at big firms.
• An engineer who wants to stay close to the work. If your career goal is to hand off CAD and become a pure project manager in the next 18 months, this isn't the right seat.

Where and How Much:

Location: Bozeman, MT — in-office, no remote. Relocation assistance available for the right person (local candidates preferred but not required).

Compensation: $90,000–$110,000 base, depending on experience, plus profit-sharing bonus eligibility

Benefits: ESOP participation, health insurance options, paid time off, company holidays, and more