What is the Opportunity?Aecon Civil is a recognized leader in the market, backed by strong self-perform capabilities and deep local expertise. We play a key role in building and enhancing infrastructure across Canada, the U.S., and an expanding international footprint improving everyday life through the roads, bridges, tunnels, and transit systems that connect communities. With more than a century of experience and a full suite of integrated services, Aecon is a trusted partner for delivering complex civil projects, including tunnels, transit expansions, airports, ports, highways, and large-scale site development.
The Hamilton LRT Alliance has been selected by Metrolinx as the development partner for the Hamilton LRT - Package 1: Civil & Utilities. Under the alliance model, Aecon provides construction capability and resources as part of an integrated team, working collaboratively with all alliance participants to progress design, cost, and construction schedules during the project's development phase.
The Hamilton LRT isn't just a transit project-it's reshaping how a city connects, grows, and moves. Join us in being part of a dynamic team building critical infrastructure that will leave a lasting legacy for generations to come!
Reporting to the Project Director, the Early Works Director will be responsible for leading and directing all pre-construction and early works activities, including utility relocations, enabling works, third-party coordination, traffic staging, property access, and early civil construction packages. The role will ensure early project phases are executed safely, efficiently, and in alignment with project schedule, budget, stakeholder commitments, and delivery objectives, setting the foundation for successful main works execution.
This opportunity is part of Aecon proactive talent pipelining as the business continues to expand across major transit projects. We are engaging passive, high-calibre leaders in the market to build relationships ahead of upcoming project awards.
What You'll Do Here: - Lead all construction activities within a collaborative delivery model (Alliance), ensuring "best-for-project" outcomes across safety, cost, schedule, and quality.
- Develop, implement, and govern the Construction Management Plan (CMP) integrated with overall project strategy, target value delivery, and open-book performance frameworks.
- Own construction readiness, mobilization, and field organization across early works and main works, ensuring clear structure across geographic zones, disciplines, and trade supervision.
- Provide constructability leadership during design development, ensuring sequencing, logistics, access, and means & methods are fully embedded before IFC release.
- Build and actively manage the construction risk profile, identifying and mitigating risks related to methods, interfaces, utilities, third parties, and urban constraints.
- Lead subcontractor and trade partner execution, including coordination, performance management, lookahead planning, constraint removal, and production tracking aligned to project controls.
- Define and manage interfaces between project pillars, Design, third-party agreements, Commercial, and Construction disciplines, ensuring coordinated handoffs, access windows, and area turnover to support integration.
- Drive Lean construction practices (e.g., Last Planner System, pull planning) to improve workflow reliability, productivity, and field execution certainty.
- Partner with commercial and project controls teams to align field execution with cost forecasts, target price, and gainshare/painshare outcomes.
- Lead staging, sequencing, and logistics planning for complex urban environments, including traffic, transit, rail corridor access, utilities, and stakeholder constraints.
- Maintain transparent communication with clients and partners, supporting governance forums, issue resolution, and a "no surprises" delivery approach.
What You Bring to the Team: - 15+ years of construction leadership experience on major infrastructure projects, including 5+ years in a senior role (Construction Manager or equivalent).
- Proven delivery of complex urban transit, rail, or heavy civil projects across the full lifecycle (early works to commissioning and handover).
- Experience working in collaborative delivery models (Alliance, Progressive DB, CMGC, DB), including familiarity with integrated teams, shared risk/reward, and joint governance structures.
- Deep expertise in construction means & methods including underground works (cut & cover, SEM, TBM), stations, guideway, utilities, and multi-discipline infrastructure.
- Strong ability to integrate construction with design development through constructability reviews, sequencing input, and design-for-delivery alignment.
- Demonstrated experience managing large field organizations and coordinating subcontractors and trade packages.
- Strong understanding of construction cost drivers, production-based forecasting, and the commercial impact of sequencing and productivity decisions.
- Experience managing complex third-party interfaces including utilities, municipalities, transit authorities, rail operators, and community stakeholders.
- Working knowledge of Lean construction systems (pull planning, constraint management, workflow optimization) applied at scale.
- Strong understanding of testing & commissioning sequencing and how construction completion and handover supports integrated system delivery.
- Post-secondary education in Engineering, Construction Management, or a related discipline; P.Eng., PMP, or equivalent considered an asset.
Reason for Vacancy: New
