Consulting Specialist, Corrosion & Cathodic Protection

The Opportunity

Black & Veatch has an exciting opportunity to join our growing national Corrosion and Cathodic Protection practice within the Infrastructure Advisory Technical Delivery team. This role supports a diverse portfolio of projects involving pipelines, tanks, and related infrastructure across water, energy, power generation, and other infrastructure markets. 

Within our corrosion practice, we continue to see strong demand for cathodic protection design and corrosion engineering services associated with both new and existing infrastructure. 

This position is intended for an experienced cathodic protection professional with a strong background in engineering design. The successful candidate will take a lead role in developing galvanic and impressed current cathodic protection systems, preparing engineering calculations and design documents, evaluating existing systems, and providing technical direction to project teams and junior professionals. 

The role also includes field investigations, commissioning, and troubleshooting activities to support design development and verify system performance; however, the primary focus of the position is cathodic protection engineering and design. 

This position provides the opportunity to: 

• Lead the design of cathodic protection systems for pipelines, tanks, and related metallic infrastructure. 
• Develop design criteria, engineering calculations, equipment selections, drawings, specifications, cost estimates, and technical design documentation. 
• Evaluate existing cathodic protection systems and develop rehabilitation, replacement, and optimization recommendations. 
• Apply field data, soil resistivity information, interference studies, and system performance data to engineering design decisions. 
• Lead technical deliverables and communicate design approaches, alternatives, and recommendations directly with clients and multidisciplinary project teams. 
• Provide technical review and mentoring to junior engineers and consultants. 
• Participate in field investigations, commissioning, and troubleshooting to support design development and verify installed system performance. 
• Contribute to project pursuits, scope and fee development, and growth of Black & Veatch’s national corrosion practice. 

This is a strong opportunity for an experienced cathodic protection design professional seeking greater technical leadership, project ownership, and involvement in complex infrastructure projects. 

The Team

In this role, you will be part of Black & Veatch’s national Corrosion and Cathodic Protection practice within the Infrastructure Advisory Technical Delivery team. The corrosion practice supports clients across water, energy, power generation, and other infrastructure markets through cathodic protection design, corrosion assessments, field investigations, system evaluations, and technical consulting. 

Black & Veatch’s Infrastructure Advisory Business provides a portfolio of solutions focused on the asset lifecycle, including Condition Assessment, Asset Management, Operations & Maintenance, Infrastructure Technology, Cybersecurity, Planning, and Transactions. 

The Consulting Team is a diverse group of professionals who work across a wide range of technical projects and disciplines, providing opportunities to build a strong technical foundation and develop deeper expertise as they advance in their careers.      

Key Responsibilities

• Lead cathodic protection engineering and design tasks for new and existing infrastructure. 
• Develop current cathodic protection system designs from concept through final design. 
• Perform and review engineering calculations including protected surface area, coating breakdown, current requirements, anode resistance and life, groundbed resistance, rectifier sizing, voltage drop, circuit resistance, and related design calculations. 
• Develop technical approaches for anode and groundbed configuration, rectifier and junction box selection, test stations, monitoring provisions, electrical isolation, continuity bonding, and interference mitigation. 
• Prepare and review cathodic protection drawings, details, specifications, design criteria, technical memoranda, reports, cost estimates, and other design deliverables. 
• Evaluate existing cathodic protection systems and develop rehabilitation, replacement, expansion, or optimization recommendations. 
• Interpret soil resistivity, structure-to-electrolyte potential, current requirement, interference, and other field data for use in engineering design and system performance evaluation. 
• Perform technical reviews and QA/QC of cathodic protection calculations, drawings, specifications, and reports prepared by other team members. 
• Provide technical direction and mentoring to junior engineers, consultants, designers, and field personnel. 
• Coordinate with civil, mechanical, electrical, structural, pipeline, and other engineering disciplines to integrate cathodic protection requirements into multidisciplinary designs. 
• Lead technical discussions with clients and project teams and clearly explain design basis, alternatives, assumptions, risks, and recommendations. 
• Support field investigations, commissioning, performance testing, and troubleshooting of cathodic protection systems when required. 
• Manage assigned technical task budgets, schedules, quality requirements, and resource needs. 
• Support project scopes, staffing plans, level-of-effort estimates, fee development, and proposal preparation.

Preferred Qualifications

• AMPP CP3 certification or higher. 
• Professional Engineer (PE) license. 
• 8-10 years’ experience in the corrosion and cathodic protection consulting environment. 
• Master’s degree in engineering or a related technical field. 
• Extensive experience with galvanic and impressed current cathodic protection systems, including design development, engineering calculations, construction documents, specifications, and construction support for large-diameter metallic pipelines, water transmission infrastructure, tanks, power generation facilities, and other major infrastructure assets. 
• Experience with electrical isolation, interference mitigation, AC/DC stray current considerations, and integration of cathodic protection systems with other project systems. 
• Experience performing independent technical review or QA/QC of cathodic protection designs. 
• Experience leading multidisciplinary design coordination and working directly with clients. 
• Experience serving as technical task lead or project manager on corrosion or cathodic protection projects. 
• Experience developing project scopes, level-of-effort estimates, and technical proposal content.    
• Demonstrated experience independently developing cathodic protection system designs for buried or submerged metallic infrastructure. 
• Demonstrated experience preparing cathodic protection engineering calculations, drawings, specifications, and technical design documentation. 
• Experience designing galvanic and/or impressed current cathodic protection systems. Experience with both system types is strongly desired. 
• Working knowledge of cathodic protection design concepts including current requirement determination, anode and groundbed design, anode life, rectifier sizing, electrical isolation, continuity, voltage drop, and system monitoring. 
• Ability to evaluate field and site-specific data and incorporate results into cathodic protection design decisions. 
• Experience reviewing technical work and providing direction to less experienced professionals. 
• Ability to independently lead technical tasks and take ownership of technical deliverables, schedule, quality, and coordination. 
• Ability to clearly communicate technical approaches, assumptions, findings, and recommendations through written deliverables and client discussions. 
• AMPP/NACE Cathodic Protection certification at CP2 level or higher. 
• Ability to travel approximately 20% or as required by project assignments.   
• Candidates should also have practical familiarity with cathodic protection field methods such as: 
  • Structure-to-electrolyte potential measurements 
  • Wenner four-pin soil resistivity testing 
  • Close Interval Potential Surveys (CIPS) 
  • Electrical continuity and isolation testing 
  • Current requirement testing 
  • Rectifier testing, adjustment, and interruption 
  • Stray current and interference testing 
  • Cathodic protection system commissioning and troubleshooting  

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, materials science, corrosion engineering, or a related technical field, or relevant experience consistent with company requirements. 
• Minimum of 7 years of related experience in cathodic protection, corrosion control, or corrosion engineering.

Certifications

• NACE/AMPP Certified 

Work Environment/Physical Demands

• This position will be based out of Black & Veatch office location within the United States.  
• Hybrid or flexible work options may be offered after the first 90 days of employment based upon manager discretion, job performance and work assignments. 
• This position will require individuals to work within confined spaces at times.       

Salary Plan

Compensation Transparency

In accordance with local requirements, the annual compensation ranges for this role are listed below by state or jurisdiction and reflect the applicable office location(s) within each. Final compensation is determined based on factors such as skills, experience, qualifications, internal alignment, geographic location, and other factors permitted by law.        

• State of California: $130,010.00 - $258,570.00
• State of Colorado: $130,010.00 - $218,790.00
• State of Illinois: $130,010.00 - $218,790.00
• State of Massachusetts: $142,920.00 - $238,680.00

Competencies

• Action oriented 
• Customer focus 
• Interpersonal savvy  

Job Grade