Research Environmental Engineer

About the Hiring Group

RTI's Center for Water, Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Energy Solutions (WARES) connects expertise across science, engineering, economics, and technology to develop practical solutions to complex environmental and economic challenges. WARES water resources work spans river forecasting and decision-support systems, water supply planning, watershed management, critical infrastructure risk analysis, and data management solutions for domestic and international clients.

We are seeking a Research Environmental Engineer to join our Forecasting and River Operations team. This team develops operational river forecasting systems, hydrologic and reservoir models, data workflows, and decision-support tools for water management agencies, hydropower utilities, and other clients. We conduct client-sponsored research to advance forecasting methods and adapt emerging research for use in operational systems.

What You'll Do

In this role, you will combine project leadership, senior technical input, client engagement, establishing and maintaining strategic partnerships, and business development. You will lead project teams, coordinate technical contributions across the group, and manage scope, budgets, and schedules to deliver high-quality solutions. You will strengthen client relationships, guide technically rigorous research and implementation, provide senior input across a diverse project portfolio, and help expand RTI's footprint in water resources forecasting and operations.

Essential Duties

• Provide senior input across multiple projects, helping define the technical direction on projects, interpret results, manage project risks, and produce high-quality deliverables.
• Serve as a senior client-facing lead, building trusted relationships through strong technical judgment, dependable project execution, and clear communication to understand client needs.
• Manage complex implementation and research projects from scoping through delivery, including planning, staffing, budget and schedule oversight, risk management, quality review, and communication with clients and partners.
• Provide senior leadership across three or more key technical areas such as hydrologic model development, deterministic and ensemble forecasting, data assimilation, forecast verification and uncertainty characterization, reservoir operations and river system management, forecast-informed decision support, and AI/ML and hybrid modeling for forecasting systems.
• Coordinate effectively with our multidisciplinary team and with external research or operational partners.
• Mentor technical staff and project managers.
• Identify emerging research with potential for implementation in client systems and communicate these opportunities to clients.
• Represent RTI in client meetings, technical workshops, conferences, working groups, and collaborative research activities.
• Establish and maintain client relationships, building trust and understanding their evolving needs and priorities.
• Identify and develop new opportunities with current and prospective clients.
• Lead or make substantial contributions to capture planning, proposals, and business development.
• Help shape new service offerings, partnerships, and investment priorities that expand RTI's forecasting and operations portfolio.

What You'll Need

Bachelor's degree and 12 years of experience, master's degree and 10 years of experience, PhD and 8 years of experience or an equivalent combination of education and experience. Relevant fields include civil engineering, environmental engineering, hydrology, water resources engineering, environmental science, computer science, geography, or a related discipline.

Required Qualifications

• Deep expertise in core aspects of operational water forecasting and decision support, with the ability to provide credible senior guidance across adjacent water resources disciplines.
• Experience with the data, models, workflows, verification methods, and operational constraints that affect operational forecasting and decision support systems.
• Proven experience leading technical projects, workstreams, or applied research efforts involving multiple contributors and stakeholders.
• Strong project leadership skills, including the ability to define scope, organize interdisciplinary work, anticipate risks, make sound decisions, and deliver high-quality work.
• Success working directly with clients, sponsors, operational agencies, utilities, or research partners.
• Experience contributing to business development through activities such as opportunity identification, client engagement, concept development, proposal preparation, or expansion of existing work.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate complex technical information to both technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Ability to develop and articulate new technical or research ideas and translate them into fundable, executable work.
• Ability to provide constructive senior review, mentorship, and technical guidance to project teams.
• Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States without current or future visa sponsorship.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with ensemble hydrologic prediction, probabilistic forecasting, uncertainty characterization, bias correction, post-processing, or forecast verification.
• Experience developing AI/ML or hybrid process-based and data-driven methods for hydrologic forecasting or water management.
• Experience applying data assimilation methods to hydrologic, snow, meteorological, hydraulic, or reservoir forecasting problems.
• Experience with reservoir system modeling, forecast-informed reservoir operations, or optimization.
• Experience with forecasting and modeling platforms or tools such as Delft-FEWS, National Weather Service forecasting models and workflows, RiverWare, HEC platforms, or comparable systems.
• Experience with coastal modeling, urban/stormwater modeling, or groundwater modeling.
• Working knowledge of Python, geospatial tools, cloud computing, or data engineering.
• Experience working with federal water agencies, River Forecast Centers, reservoir operators, or hydropower utilities.
• Experience leading or contributing to collaborative research involving academic, government, nonprofit, and private-sector partners.
• A record of technical publications, conference presentations, workshops, or leadership in professional and research communities.