The Role

The Senior Lead Project Controls Specialist will shape resource planning and operational expenditure governance across Custom Networks and CN Shared Resources. In this highly visible individual contributor role, you will develop data-driven planning models that connect customer and project demand with workforce supply, business priorities, and delivery capacity.

You will partner with project controls, program management, operations, engineering, finance, products resources, and business leaders to identify capacity gaps, contractor requirements, vacancies, resource modelling, and delivery risks. Your insights and recommendations will help leaders make informed decisions, strengthen planning accuracy, and align critical business commitments with available resources.

Location

This is a work from home position within the U.S.

The Main Responsibilities

• Lead short-, medium-, and long-term resource planning across project teams and business functions.
• Build and maintain resource supply-and-demand models reflecting workloads, priorities, vacancies, contractor needs, skills, and capacity constraints.
• Develop scenario-planning frameworks, dashboards, and reporting views that provide visibility into resource demand, utilization, contractor mix, vacancies, and planning risks.
• Identify resource gaps, skill constraints, and capacity risks, and recommend practical options that support business and delivery commitments.
• Partner with leaders to align resource plans with project schedules, annual planning cycles, operational expenditure assumptions, and changing priorities.
• Facilitate cross-functional planning and governance sessions to validate assumptions, evaluate risks, review priorities, and establish mitigation actions.
• Translate complex data and modelling outputs into concise, action-oriented recommendations and decision materials for senior leaders.
• Improve planning standards, data quality, reporting cadence, governance routines, and forecast reliability.
• Develop and maintain deployment-driven revenue realization schedules month-over-month that translate field deployment milestones, and delivery sequencing into timing assumptions for business planning and forecasting to share with Leadership teams, Finance, Product.

What We Look For in a Candidate

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Business, Operations, Analytics, or a related field.
• Eight or more years of experience in project controls, resource planning, workforce planning, Opex management, portfolio governance, or related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience building resource models, capacity plans, workload forecasts, planning dashboards, and scenario analyses.
• Strong understanding of project delivery environments, governance routines, planning assumptions, and cross-functional dependencies.
• Advanced proficiency in Excel and Power BI, including the ability to build clear, scalable, and maintainable models and reporting views.
• Experience preparing executive-level updates, decision materials, and action-oriented recommendations.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, facilitation, organization, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without direct authority and drive alignment across teams in an ambiguous, rapidly changing environment.
• Experience in telecommunications, technology, network deployment, infrastructure, or large capital programs.
• Experience supporting large, matrixed organizations composed of employees, contractors, and cross-functional delivery teams.
• Knowledge of project controls, portfolio management, capacity planning, workforce analytics, and resource governance.
• Experience with planning or reporting platforms such as SAP, Planview, Clarity, Anaplan, Adaptive Planning, or comparable tools.
• Project Management Professional, project controls, analytics, or a related professional certification.

Compensation

This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors.

Location Based Pay Ranges

$105,786 - $141,047 in these states: AL AR AZ FL GA IA ID IN KS KY LA ME MO MS MT ND NE NM OH OK PA SC SD TN UT VT WI WV WY
$111,074 - $148,099 in these states: CO HI MI MN NC NH NV OR RI
$116,364 - $155,152 in these states: AK CA CT DC DE IL MA MD NJ NY TX VA WA

Lumen offers a comprehensive package featuring a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle benefits and other perks that enhance your physical, mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. We're able to answer any additional questions you may have about our bonus structure (short-term incentives, long-term incentives and/or sales compensation) as you move through the selection process.

Learn more about Lumen's:BenefitsBonus Structure

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Requisition #: 343382