Senior Water Resources Engineer

Job Description

About WSP

This Opportunity

WSP is seeking a Senior Water Resources Engineer to join our growing Dam Safety and Water Resources practice. This position may be based in Philadelphia, Exton, Bristol, Blue Bell, Baltimore, Columbia, Herndon, or other mutually agreeable Mid-Atlantic WSP office locations. The successful candidate will support complex dam safety, levee, hydraulic infrastructure, flood risk management, and resiliency projects for state, federal, utility, and private-sector clients.


This role provides an opportunity to serve as both a technical leader and project manager while collaborating with multidisciplinary teams across WSP. The successful candidate will help shape project strategy, support client growth, mentor developing staff, and contribute to the continued expansion of WSP's dam safety and water resources practice throughout the Mid-Atlantic and nationally.

The ideal candidate is an experienced engineer who enjoys balancing technical excellence, project delivery, client engagement, and team leadership while remaining actively involved in solving complex water resources challenges.

Your Impact

• Perform dam and levee engineering analyses, including dam safety inspections, hydraulic infrastructure evaluations, and regulated impoundment compliance assessments in accordance with state and federal dam safety regulations.
• Conduct hydrologic and hydraulic modeling for dam safety, including incremental and full dam-breach analyses, spillway capacity evaluations, and downstream consequence assessments using HEC-HMS and HEC-RAS (1D/2D).
• Support dam rehabilitation and modification projects in collaboration with geotechnical and structural teams, including spillway improvements, embankment stability, seepage mitigation, outlet works, and auxiliary structures.
• Prepare and support Emergency Action Plans (EAPs), inundation mapping, and coordination with owners and emergency management agencies.
• Perform instrumentation evaluation, monitoring data review, and dam surveillance planning to support risk-informed decision-making.
• Perform stormwater and watershed analyses supporting dam, levee, and flood-risk management projects.
• Prepare technical reports and presentations that clearly communicate findings and recommendations.
• Prepare and implement site Health and Safety Plans (HASPs).
• Interact with regulatory agencies, subcontractors, and clients confidently and professionally.
• Serve as Project Manager, Deputy Project Manager or Technical Lead on complex dam, levee, water resources, and hydraulic infrastructure projects
• Lead and coordinate multidisciplinary project teams, including engineers, field staff, and technical specialists to deliver integrated and high-quality project solutions.
• Assist with project scoping, budgeting, scheduling, and execution to ensure timely and successful delivery
• Review and oversee engineering analyses, reports, designs, and other project deliverables prepared by junior and mid-level staff, ensuring technical quality, consistency, and regulatory compliance.
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and career development guidance to early and mid-career engineers and project team members.
• Support proposal development, client engagement, marketing initiatives, and business development activities that contribute to the growth of WSP's services.
• Build strong working relationships with clients and contribute to long-term account management
• Exercise responsible and ethical decision-making regarding company funds, resources, and conduct, and adhere to WSP's Code of Conduct and related policies and procedures.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in civil or environmental engineering or closely related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience in dam, hydraulic infrastructure, water resources engineering, flood risk management, or closely related disciplines.
• Licensed Professional Engineer (PE), with ability to obtain additional state licensures as needed.
• Well-developed knowledge of dam safety and hydraulic infrastructure engineering, including flood hydrology, spillway hydraulics, dam breach analysis, floodplain delineation, risk analysis and watershed-scale hydrologic modeling.
• Working knowledge of stormwater management, drainage, erosion and sediment control, and watershed studies.
• Experience supporting dam, levee, and hydraulic infrastructure projects (inspections, evaluations, rehabilitation design, and regulatory compliance)
• Experience preparing or supporting dam safety inspections, engineering assessments, designs, construction, or risk-informed evaluations
• Experience serving as lead engineer, inspection team leader, technical lead, or engineer of record on dam or hydraulic infrastructure projects.
• Ability to perform and review technical calculations, modeling, and reports prepared by junior staff
• Proficiency with hydrologic and hydraulic modeling tools such as HEC-HMS, HEC-RAS, TR-55, HydroCAD, PCSWMM, GIS, and CAD
• Excellent technical communication, collaboration, project coordination, and client-facing skills.
• Willingness to travel occasionally based on project needs

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's degree in engineering with a focus in Water Resources or closely related discipline.
• Specialized expertise in dam safety engineering, including inspections, breach analysis, spillway design, embankment dams, levees, risk analysis and related hydraulic structures. Familiarity with 3D analysis such as CFD or Flow3D for dam analyses.
• Experience with State or Federal (FERC/USACE/NRCS) dam safety inspection programs, including periodic inspections and owner dam safety program support.
• Experience supporting dam rehabilitation, modification, or removal projects, including preparation of engineering reports and design documentation.
• Familiarity with risk-informed dam safety concepts, consequence classification, and surveillance/monitoring programs.
• Familiarity with semi-quantitative and quantitative risk analyses
• Regulatory knowledge with USACE, FEMA, FERC, USBR, and other local, state, and federal agencies and regulators.
• Project management experience.
• Ability to develop strong client relationships
• Member of and actively participates in professional organizations and conferences
• Known and recognized locally or regionally in water resources industry.
• Basic First Aid and Adult CPR training desired.

About Us

About WSP
WSP USA is the U.S. operating company of WSP, one of the world's leading engineering and professional services firms. Dedicated to serving local communities, we are engineers, planners, technical experts, strategic advisors and construction management professionals. WSP USA designs lasting solutions in the buildings, transportation, energy, water and environment markets. With more than 15,000 employees in over 300 offices across the U.S., we partner with our clients to help communities prosper.

WSP provides a flexible and agile workplace model while meeting client needs. Employees are also afforded a comprehensive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, disability, life, and retirement savings focused on providing health and financial stability throughout the employee's career.


At WSP, we want to give our employees the challenges they seek to grow their careers and knowledge base. Your daily contributions to your team will be essential in meeting client objectives, goals and challenges. Are you ready to get started?


WSP USA (and all of its U.S. companies) is an Equal Opportunity Employer Race/Age/Color/Religion/Sex/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity/National Origin/Disability or Protected Veteran Status.


The selected candidate must be authorized to work in the United States.


NOTICE TO THIRD PARTY AGENCIES:


WSP does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters, employment agencies, or other staffing services. Unsolicited resumes include any resume or hiring document sent to WSP in the absence of a signed Service Agreement where WSP has expressly requested recruitment/staffing services specific to the position at hand. Any unsolicited resumes, including those submitted to hiring managers or other business leaders, will become the property of WSP and WSP will have the right to hire that candidate without reservation - no fee or other compensation will be owed or paid to the recruiter, employment agency, or other staffing service.