Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. RTI International is an independent scientific research institute that develops science- and technology-based solutions to critical global problems. The Water Resources Engineer will support flood risk analysis, hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, reservoir and river-system operations, and integrated water resources planning through data analysis, model development, computational tool development, and technical communication.
Responsibilities
- Collaborate with engineers, scientists, and software developers to implement, test, document, and enhance RTI’s hydrologic, flood risk, and water resources planning tools
- Collect, quality-check, analyze, and summarize hydrologic, meteorological, hydraulic, geospatial, infrastructure, and water-use data to support model development and decision analysis
- Develop, calibrate, and apply hydrologic, hydraulic, reservoir, and river-system models for flood risk assessment and integrated water resources planning
- Design and develop reproducible spreadsheets, scripts, databases, and visualization workflows that improve data management, model execution, quality control, and communication of results
- Evaluate flood mitigation, reservoir operations, infrastructure, and watershed management alternatives under historical, extreme, and future hydrologic conditions
- Prepare clear technical documentation, visualizations, and presentations that communicate methods, assumptions, uncertainty, and results to technical and nontechnical audiences
- Lead small projects, task orders, or technical workstreams of moderate complexity by coordinating scope, schedule, budget, quality, and team contributions
- Contribute to proposal strategy, technical approaches, scopes of work, staffing plans, budgets, and selected sections of larger proposals
- Build scientific and professional stature by sharing project methods and findings through internal presentations, client briefings, technical publications, and conference presentations or papers
Skills
- Bachelor's degree + at least 5 years of experience; or
- Master's degree + at least 3 years of experience; or
- PhD + 0 years of experience; or
- Equivalent combination of education and experience
- Demonstrated knowledge and experience in water resources engineering, hydrology, hydraulics, river-basin planning, or a closely related field
- Experience applying quantitative methods to water resources problems, with relevant experience in one or more areas such as flood risk, hydrologic or hydraulic analysis, reservoir modeling, or integrated water resources planning
- Ability to collect, quality-check, analyze, interpret, and document water resources data
- Ability to use programming, scripting, spreadsheets, databases, GIS, or other computational tools for technical analysis
- Ability to prepare clear technical documentation and communicate methods, assumptions, uncertainty, and results to technical and nontechnical audiences
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively within multidisciplinary teams while managing multiple priorities
- To qualify, applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States and should not require, now or in the future, sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H-1B visa status, etc.)
- Hydrologic modeling using continuous, event-based, snowmelt, probabilistic, or stochastic methods
- Hydraulic modeling to support flood routing, flood-inundation analysis, dam or levee safety projects, consequence analysis, or flood-risk assessment
- Reservoir, river-system, or large-scale water-system operations modeling, including rule-based operations and planning or management scenarios
- Water-allocation modeling using MODSIM or similar river-basin planning and operations software to support green and gray infrastructure analysis, shared-basin applications, or decision-support systems
- Calibration of hydrologic and other water resources models, including sensitivity analysis, uncertainty analysis, and evaluation of model performance
- Water resources statistical analysis
- Experience with hydrologic or hydraulic models such as HEC-HMS, HEC-RAS, SAC-SMA, Snow-17, UBC, stochastic event flood models, or comparable platforms
- Programming or scripting with Python, R, C#, VB.NET, or comparable languages
- Geospatial analysis and mapping using ArcGIS, QGIS, or comparable tools
- Relational databases and data management using SQL
- Development of reproducible analytical workflows, graphical user interfaces, visualization dashboards, or tools such as Tableau or Power BI
- Optimization, machine learning, scenario screening, or other advanced computational methods applied to water resources problems
Benefits
- A generous paid time off policy
- Merit based annual increases
- Bonus opportunities
- A robust recognition program
- A competitive range of insurance plans, including health, dental, life, and short-term and long-term disability
- Access to a retirement savings program such as a 401(k) plan
- Paid parental leave for all parents
- Financial assistance with adoption expenses or infertility treatments
- Financial reimbursement for education and developmental opportunities
- An employee assistance program
- Numerous other offerings to support a healthy work-life balance
- Fully remote work may be considered; teleworking is permitted within the United States
Company Overview