Cost Engineer

Job description

Your Job Georgia-Pacific is seeking a Cost Engineer to support capital projects across our facilities in North America. This role offers the opportunity to apply and expand cost-engineering expertise across projects of varying size and complexity, with the level of ownership aligned to the individual’s experience and capabilities. In this role, you will partner with project teams to establish budgets, analyze performance, develop forecasts, identify emerging risks, and provide insights that improve project decisions and financial outcomes. The ideal candidate combines strong analytical and forecasting skills with the ability to communicate clearly and collaborate across project disciplines. This is a remote position open to candidates located within the US and requires up to 25% travel to headquarters and facilities in USA/Canada (based on business needs). Our Team The Project Services team supports capital project execution across Georgia-Pacific’s North American facilities. Our team includes project controls leads, estimators, risk managers, cost engineers, and capability leaders who develop and apply consistent project practices. We collaborate with project teams, facilities, and external partners to improve project outcomes while supporting the development of project professionals. What You Will Do Partner with project managers and project controls professionals to establish project cost structures, control budgets, and cost-control procedures aligned with the work breakdown structure and contracting strategy. Maintain a complete and accurate project cost position across approved budget, commitments, actual costs, accruals, forecast-to-complete, estimate-at-completion, pending changes, contingency, and management reserve. Coordinate monthly cost-cycle activities, including data validation, accrual development, contractor forecast reviews, period close, and reconciliation between project controls and financial systems. Analyze project cost performance, trends, risks, and variances; communicate forecast movement through reports and dashboards; and recommend actions that improve project decisions and outcomes. Integrate cost and schedule information to evaluate project progress, earned value, cash flow, forecast phasing, milestone impacts, and the cost consequences of delay or acceleration. Monitor commitments, contracts, purchase orders, invoices, and payment status; partner with procurement and contract administration to identify gaps, duplicate exposure, uncommitted scope, and commercial risk. Collaborate with scheduling, estimating, risk, and change-management professionals to evaluate cost impacts, document assumptions, and translate risks and opportunities into cost exposure, contingency scenarios, and forecast ranges. Work with internal partners, contractors, and vendors to maintain timely, accurate, and auditable cost information, including source data, approvals, reconciliations, assumptions, and change history. Transform and integrate data from multiple systems into reliable, analysis-ready datasets and provide recurring or ad hoc insights to project teams and leadership. Coach project team members and external partners on cost-control expectations, coding discipline, forecast ownership, and timely submission of supporting data while contributing to continuous improvement of cost-engineering capabilities. Measure of Success Timely, accurate, and traceable monthly cost reporting with clear ownership of forecast changes. Early identification of cost pressure, change exposure, and cash-flow impacts before they result in overruns. Consistent alignment among budget, commitments, actuals, accruals, forecast, schedule, and approved change records. Concise leadership reporting that distinguishes facts, assumptions, risks, opportunities, and required decisions. Who You Are (Basic Qualifications) Two or more years of experience in project controls, cost engineering, or a related project-cost role supporting construction, capital, or other complex projects. Hands-on experience with budgeting, commitments, actual costs, accruals, cost forecasting, variance analysis, and change control across multiple work packages or commercial commitments. Experience using Excel and a project controls, enterprise resource planning, or financial system to reconcile and analyze large cost datasets. Demonstrated analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to interpret complex data and develop practical conclusions. Experience communicating complex cost information clearly to project teams and business leaders through reports, dashboards, or presentations. Ability to collaborate across project disciplines and appropriately challenge unsupported cost, forecast, or progress information. Willing and able to travel up to 25% (project dependent) What Will Put You Ahead Five or more years of experience in project controls or cost engineering. Bachelor’s degree or higher in engineering, construction management, building science, business, finance, accounting, or a related field. Experience supporting large or complex capital projects for an owner organization or in an engineering, procurement, and construction environment, particularly within a manufacturing or industrial operation. Experience with EcoSys or a comparable Enterprise Project Performance (EPP) system and visualization tools such as Qlik or Power BI. Working knowledge of earned value management, cost and schedule integration, and cash-flow forecasting. Relevant certification or active progress toward certification, such as AACE CCP, CEP, or EVP; PMI-SP; PMP; or a comparable project controls credential. For this role, we anticipate paying $85,000–$135,000 per year. This role is eligible for variable pay, issued as a monetary bonus or in another form. At Koch companies, we are entrepreneurs. This means we openly challenge the status quo, find new ways to create value, and are rewarded for our individual contributions. Any compensation range provided for a role is an estimate based on available market data. The actual amount may be higher or lower than the range provided based on each candidate’s knowledge, skills, abilities, and geographic location. If you have questions, please speak with your recruiter about the flexibility and details of our compensation philosophy. At Koch companies, we are entrepreneurs. This means we openly challenge the status quo, find new ways to create value and get rewarded for our individual contributions. Any compensation range provided for a role is an estimate determined by available market data. The actual amount may be higher or lower than the range provided considering each candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, and geographic location. If you have questions, please speak to your recruiter about the flexibility and detail of our compensation philosophy. Hiring Philosophy All Koch companies value diversity of thought, perspectives, aptitudes, experiences, and backgrounds. We are Military Ready and Second Chance employers. Learn more about our hiring philosophy here . Who We Are At Koch, employees are empowered to do what they do best to make life better. Learn how our business philosophy helps employees unleash their potential while creating value for themselves and the company. Our Benefits Our goal is for each employee, and their families, to live fulfilling and healthy lives. We provide essential resources and support to build and maintain physical, financial, and emotional strength - focusing on overall wellbeing so you can focus on what matters most. Our benefits plan includes - medical, dental, vision, flexible spending and health savings accounts, life insurance, ADD, disability, retirement, paid vacation/time off, educational assistance, and may also include infertility assistance, paid parental leave and adoption assistance. Specific eligibility criteria is set by the applicable Summary Plan Description, policy or guideline and benefits may vary by geog