Contract Manager

Below is the Job Description for your reference:-

\n

\n

Job title: Contracts Manager III

\n

Location : Waltham, MA

\n

Duration : 12 months

\n

Pay range: $45-$55/hr on W2

\n

\n

Job Description:

\n

\n

About the Role

\n

Client is seeking a Procurement Delivery Lead – Electric Capital Construction to support NE Electric capital delivery construction procurement activity. This is a contractor role operating at a manager level as a senior individual contributor. The role will be the right hand to the director and will provide hands-on procurement, sourcing, commercial, bid execution, and process improvement support for complex electric construction work.

\n

\n

Key Accountabilities

\n

1. Capital Construction Bid Execution

\n

• \n
• Lead or support sourcing events for NE Electric capital construction work, including transmission, distribution, substation, civil, underground, overhead line, and related electric infrastructure construction services.
• \n
• Develop and maintain sourcing event plans, bid calendars, procurement trackers, milestone schedules, responsibility matrices, action logs, issue logs, and decision logs.
• \n
• Support development of RFIs, RFPs, RFQs, bid forms, pricing schedules, evaluation criteria, supplier instructions, clarification logs, negotiation materials, and award recommendation packages.
• \n
• Ensure sourcing events are released to market with clear scopes of work, commercial requirements, pricing structures, safety expectations, schedule assumptions, evaluation methodology, and governance requirements.
• \n
• Coordinate supplier questions, stakeholder responses, bid clarifications, addenda, site visit requirements, pricing updates, evaluation meetings, and negotiation preparation.
• \n

\n

\n

2. Construction Procurement and Commercial Strategy

\n

• \n
• Advise on appropriate sourcing strategies and commercial models for construction work, including lump sum, unit price, time and materials, EPC, EPCM, framework agreements, master service agreements, contractor panels, and project-specific awards.
• \n
• Support the development of negotiation strategies that address cost, schedule, productivity, change management, risk allocation, payment terms, warranties, insurance, bonding, escalation, claims avoidance, and performance expectations.
• \n
• Apply total cost of ownership thinking to construction sourcing decisions, including mobilization, demobilization, outage constraints, productivity assumptions, change order exposure, contractor availability, supplier switching costs, and long-term delivery risk.
• \n
• Partner with Legal, Risk, Safety, Finance, Engineering, Construction, and Project Management to resolve commercial exceptions and align contractual positions with project delivery needs.
• \n

\n

\n

3. Thought Leadership and Strategic Improvement

\n

• \n
• Serve as a thought partner to Procurement leadership by identifying opportunities to improve how construction sourcing work is planned, prioritized, governed, executed, measured, and communicated.
• \n
• Bring external perspective, construction procurement expertise, and practical market insight to challenge legacy ways of working and support more effective delivery of the growing NE Electric capital portfolio.
• \n
• Develop and recommend strategic improvements to sourcing strategy, supplier engagement, contracting approach, governance routines, bid evaluation discipline, workload visibility, and stakeholder alignment.
• \n
• Translate strategic improvement ideas into practical, executable plans with clear deliverables, timelines, owners, and success measures.
• \n

\n

\n

4. Process Improvement, Standardization, and Scalability

\n

• \n
• Assess current procurement and sourcing processes supporting NE Electric capital delivery and identify opportunities to improve efficiency, transparency, consistency, stakeholder experience, and cycle time.
• \n
• Design and implement practical process improvements that enable Procurement to support a significantly growing construction and capital delivery workplan.
• \n
• Establish standardized sourcing tools, templates, playbooks, bid packages, evaluation models, negotiation frameworks, project trackers, risk registers, reporting routines, and governance materials.
• \n
• Develop repeatable sourcing and bid management methodologies that can be leveraged across multiple construction projects, categories, and procurement teams.
• \n
• Introduce scalable management tools, dashboards, reporting routines, and performance metrics that provide improved visibility into sourcing pipelines, bid status, risks, workload, and resource demands.
• \n

\n

\n

5. Procurement Manager and Category Team Support

\n

• \n
• Operate as a senior individual contributor providing practical, hands-on support to procurement managers, category leads, buyers, and business partners.
• \n
• Help translate leadership direction and business requirements into clear procurement actions, deliverables, timelines, ownership, and decision points.
• \n
• Provide structure to complex or ambiguous sourcing activity through templates, trackers, meeting routines, issue logs, risk registers, milestone plans, and clear follow-up.
• \n
• Support preparation for leadership updates, stakeholder meetings, sourcing governance reviews, supplier negotiation sessions, and award approval discussions.
• \n
• Coach and guide procurement team members on construction sourcing best practices, bid discipline, commercial strategy, supplier engagement, documentation quality, and stakeholder management.
• \n
• Strengthen consistency, accountability, execution quality, and follow-through across construction procurement events without acting as a direct people manager.
• \n
• Support Procurement leadership by helping ensure commitments, risks, decisions, and next steps are visible, tracked, and actively managed.
• \n

\n

\n

6. Stakeholder Partnership and Business Alignment

\n

• \n
• Partner with NE Electric business stakeholders to understand project objectives, schedule drivers, construction constraints, regulatory commitments, budget considerations, field execution needs, and operational requirements.
• \n
• Work closely with project management, engineering, construction, safety, finance, legal, risk, and operations teams to ensure sourcing strategies reflect real business and field execution needs.
• \n
• Facilitate alignment across stakeholders where requirements, priorities, timelines, or commercial assumptions are unclear, incomplete, or misaligned.
• \n
• Communicate procurement status, risks, decisions, tradeoffs, and required actions in a clear, concise, and executive-ready manner.
• \n
• Support stakeholder confidence in Procurement by bringing transparency, follow-through, practical commercial guidance, and credible execution support to sourcing activity.
• \n
• Ensure procurement recommendations are aligned with business priorities, governance requirements, customer value, capital delivery objectives, and long-term affordability.
• \n

\n

\n

7. Supplier and Market Engagement

\n

• \n
• Support supplier market engagement for electric construction services, including market sounding, bidder list development, supplier outreach, prequalification, and supplier engagement planning.
• \n
• Assess contractor capability, market capacity, regional availability, labor constraints, safety performance, geographic coverage, equipment availability, financial stability, and delivery track record.
• \n
• Help identify supply chain risks and opportunities across the construction contractor base, including capacity limitations, specialty labor needs, competing utility demand, schedule conflicts, and market pricing pressures.
• \n
• Support the development of supplier engagement plans that improve bid participation, clarify requirements, improve competition, and strengthen supplier accountability.
• \n
• Build appropriate performance expectations into sourcing and contracting materials, including safety, schedule, quality, responsiveness, commercial discipline, reporting, productivity, and project execution requirements.
• \n
• Support effective handoff from sourcing to contract management, project delivery, or supplier relationship management teams.
• \n

\n

\n

8. Governance, Controls, and Documentation

\n

• \n
• Ensure procurement activity is well documented, auditable, and aligned with internal policies, sourcing governance, approval requirements, business commitments, and regulatory expectations.
• \n
• Maintain clear records of sourcing decisions, evaluation outcomes, negotiation positions, commercial rationale, risk tradeoffs, and award recommendations.
• \n
• Support procurement documentation that is suitable for leadership review, audit, regulatory inquiry, and internal governance.
• \n
• Use procurement systems and tools effectively, including SAP, Ariba, e-sourcing platforms, Excel-based bid analysis, trackers, and reporting dashboards.
• \n
• Identify process gaps, inefficient handoffs, unclear decision rights, inconsistent documentation, or governance weaknesses and recommend practical improvements.
• \n
• Promote consistent use of procurement templates, evaluation models, risk logs, communication routines, sourcing governance materials, and decision-making records.
• \n