Principal, Hydrotechnical
PRINCIPAL, HYDROTECHNICAL
Technical leadership of PRI’s hydrotechnical practice, with primary accountability for Dam Safety Reviews (DSRs) as the firm’s Qualified Professional Engineer (QPE) in BC.
Location: Vancouver, BC
Full-time, Permanent
About the role
PRI is a multidisciplinary engineering and environmental consulting firm with offices across British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario. We are seeking an experienced Principal, Hydrotechnical to provide technical leadership for our hydrotechnical engineering practice. This is a senior leadership role for a seasoned hydrotechnical engineer who is energized by raising the technical bar, mentoring engineers across offices, and building a practice known for the quality, rigour, and integrity of its work.
You will own the technical excellence, quality, and capability of the hydrotechnical discipline across a multi-office practice: the senior technical authority the team turns to, the mentor who develops emerging engineers into confident registered professionals, and the standard-bearer who ensures every deliverable stands up to code, regulatory, and professional scrutiny. Our commercial leaders own client relationships and business growth, so you can focus on the quality of the engineering and the strength of the team. You will be a senior technical resource on major pursuits, but you will not carry sales targets.
The practice serves municipalities, provincial and federal agencies, First Nations, developers, and industrial and resource-sector clients, delivering flood hazard mapping and river engineering, stormwater management, dam safety, fish passage and habitat design, bridge and culvert hydraulics, and coastal and erosion protection work.
The successful candidate will be based in Vancouver and will be qualified — or readily eligible — to lead and sign Dam Safety Reviews (DSRs) in British Columbia as PRI’s Qualified Professional Engineer (QPE), building a dam safety and river hydraulics practice on a strong existing base in water resources engineering.
What you'll own
• Serve as senior technical authority for the practice, providing expert oversight on complex hydrotechnical projects and technically challenging assignments, and act as, or support other engineers acting as, Engineer of Record.
• Own rigorous technical review and professional sign-off across hydraulic and hydrologic models, flood hazard mapping, drainage designs, calculations, and reports, and ensure every deliverable meets PRI’s quality standards and applicable codes and guidelines across BC, Alberta, and Ontario. Given the public-safety consequence of hydrotechnical work, quality control is a defining responsibility.
• Lead and sign Dam Safety Reviews (DSRs) under the BC Dam Safety Regulation as PRI’s Qualified Professional Engineer (QPE), in line with EGBC practice guidelines and the Canadian Dam Association (CDA) Dam Safety Guidelines.
• Direct dam classification and consequence assessments, dam breach and inundation studies, and Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan (EPRP) inputs.
• Review instrumentation, surveillance, and Operation, Maintenance and Surveillance (OMS) manuals; interpret performance data and recommend actions.
• Own and continuously improve the practice’s technical standards, modelling protocols, checking protocols, and quality management systems.
• Own the practice’s technical capability across river engineering, stormwater, flood hazard, and fish passage disciplines, and manage utilization, labour forecasts, and workload planning across offices with sector leaders and Project Managers.
• Mentor and develop hydrotechnical engineers, EITs, technologists, and drafters; build a bench of senior discipline leads across offices; and support emerging engineers toward P.Eng. registration with EGBC, APEGA, and PEO.
• Lead recruitment and succession planning for key technical roles, and lead regular practice meetings that build technical community across offices.
• Provide technical strategy, credibility, and content on major pursuits, and act as a trusted technical advisor to clients alongside the commercial leaders who own the relationship.
• Champion new methods and tools, including 2D/3D hydraulic modelling, remote sensing and LiDAR terrain analysis, and AI-enabled approaches to hydrologic analysis, while safeguarding the engineering judgment the work demands.
• Design, assess, and support construction of dams — embankment (earth-fill and rock-fill) and concrete (gravity, arch, buttress, RCC) — across energy (hydro, storage and diversion dams) and mining (tailings dams and water management structures), including upstream, downstream and centreline tailings raise methods.
Standards you'll work to
CDA Dam Safety Guidelines and Technical Bulletins (including the mining dams bulletin); BC Dam Safety Regulation and EGBC guidelines for legislated Dam Safety Reviews and flood assessments; Alberta Dam and Canal Safety Directive; Ontario Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act and MNR dam technical bulletins; GISTM and the MAC Tailings and OMS Guides; HSRC for Mines in BC; and the federal Fisheries Act.
What you bring
Required
• P.Eng. in good standing with Engineers and Geoscientists BC (EGBC), and qualified — or readily eligible — to act as PRI’s Qualified Professional Engineer (QPE) for Dam Safety Reviews (DSRs) under the BC Dam Safety Regulation; registration with APEGA or PEO is a strong asset given the practice’s footprint.
• Involvement in at least five Dam Safety Reviews (DSRs), including a lead role on at least two DSRs for dams of similar type and complexity — meeting EGBC’s qualification criteria for a QPE under the BC Dam Safety Regulation.
• Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering with a focus on water resources or hydrotechnical engineering; graduate degree an asset.
• Minimum 15 years of direct, progressive experience in the design, construction, performance assessment, and/or operation of dams — meeting EGBC’s QPE experience threshold — within a broader hydrotechnical engineering career with a record of stamping consequential work.
• Minimum 5 years of technical or team leadership, including mentoring, technical review, resource planning, or practice development.
• Deep knowledge of hydrology, open-channel hydraulics, flood hazard mapping, stormwater management, river engineering and geomorphology, and Canadian design codes and guidelines.
• Demonstrated experience leading technical teams and providing senior review across multiple concurrent projects, with the maturity to lead across offices through senior specialists.
• Excellent communication skills and a genuine commitment to technical excellence, public safety, and client service.
Preferred
• Experience as Engineer of Record across flood hazard, river engineering, or stormwater infrastructure projects of varying sizes.
• Specialization in fish passage and fisheries engineering, coastal or estuarine engineering, or climate change adaptation and resilience planning.
• Proficiency with hydraulic and hydrologic modelling software (HEC-RAS, HEC-HMS, MIKE, PCSWMM, or similar) and GIS-based floodplain mapping.
• Experience developing quality management systems, technical standards, or internal training programs, and multi-jurisdictional experience across BC, Alberta, and Ontario.
• DSR experience across multiple dam types — embankment, concrete gravity, tailings and water retention structures.
• Active involvement with the Canadian Dam Association (CDA) or ICOLD committees, or published technical work.
• An established network of dam owners and regulators in BC.
Why PRI
• Technical leaders lead technically; sector VPs own the commercial side
• Dam safety, mine water, and flood work with real public-safety consequence
• One team across Geotechnical, Civil, Environmental, and Geomatics on tailings and dam projects
• Investment in 2D and 3D modelling, remote sensing, AI-enabled tools, and your professional development
• Competitive compensation, comprehensive benefits, and a seat at the table as the firm grows to 300
PRI is an equal-opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and inclusive team. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates and particularly encourage applications from Indigenous professionals.