What is the Opportunity?Aecon is seeking an Early Works Director to join the team in support of the Hamilton Light Rail Transit (LRT) Project. This transformational transit project will help shape the future of mobility in Hamilton, improving connectivity and supporting sustainable community growth.
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
