Geotechnical Engineer

Geotechnical Engineer - Transmission Lines / Geohazards

TEEMA Solutions Group Inc.

Job Overview

14953

GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING, TRANSMISSION - STATIONS

The Transmission Engineering Division has a rewarding opportunity for a Senior Geotechnical Engineer to join its Geotechnical Team as a Contingent Labour Resource Augmentation. The Transmission Engineering Division provides engineering services for 18,000 km of transmission lines, 150+ substations, and a large number of telecom towers. Projects include capital and maintenance of Stations, Line and Telecom assets. The focus of the work for this position will be for foundation design, ground improvement design, geohazard and geotechnical risk identification and mitigation measures. Overall, the role will be for the assessment and design of "Station" assets (facilities located across the province), however, work will include line and telecom assets too. Rock engineering and rock mechanic assessment and design are not required for this position, though experience with rock anchor foundation design and rock slope stabilization would be an asset.

The Geotechnical team currently consists of 1 specialist engineer (stations), 2 senior engineers, 1 technologist, and 2 external geotechnical engineers working in-house with the team. The work environment is considered multi-disciplinary, requiring working closely with Electrical, Overhead, Structural and Civil disciplines as well as environmental, safety and construction management teams. Depending on the workload, some of the works are conducted by external consultant teams and, in particular, the execution of subsurface site investigations.

Experience and Role Accountabilities - General

1. Develop safe engineering solutions by using initiative and judgment to perform tasks including developing designs, analyzing and resolving problems, and interpreting engineering specifications on medium to highly complex assignments for BC Hydro projects and operations.
2. Meet safety, cost, quality, and time objectives by proposing changes in plans and estimated costs, recommending payment for work completed by contractors, preparing progress reports, coordinating work schedules and other similar tasks.
3. Resolve highly technical and unusual design and field engineering problems by conducting independent studies and analysis, exercising independent judgment in selecting and interpreting information, recommending safe engineering designs to support successful operations and/or project completion at BC Hydro.
4. Participate in BC Hydro's engineering practice by conducting independent studies and analysis, contributing to the development of technical standards, exercising judgment in selecting and interpreting information, recommending safe engineering designs, and making decisions related to methods and designs as well as providing guidance and advice to other engineering professionals to develop future capability at BC Hydro. Perform engineering oversight acting as Owner's Engineer.
5. Deliver exceptional customer service by communicating with stakeholders and performing activities such as defining the scope of engineering/geoscience services to be provided, establishing the basic design criteria with the client, approving all related technical documentation, and assessing and reporting on work progress against standards, objectives, and specifications to support completion of projects safely, with quality, within budget and on time.
6. Make decisions and recommendations of a complex technical nature including the establishment of design bases, criteria and concepts, and/or on matters affecting the management of engineering/geoscience resources and activities to support major work assignments for the engineering divisions at BC Hydro.

Experience and Role Accountabilities - Specific

This role requires demonstrated experience with geotechnical design for moderately to heavily loaded permanent building foundations and lightly to moderately loaded substation component foundations. Industry experience must be translatable to station facility design for overhead structures and underground cables which have operating voltages from 60kV to 500kV in an electric utility environment, as well as design for telecommunication towers.

1. Take geotechnical lead position in procuring consulting and or site investigation services for work packages. It requires collaboration with management, procurement, forestry, environmental and safety teams to prepare an RFP (scope of work, technical specs, table of quantities/prices, and definition of payment items).
2. Review and accept consultant's and contractor's proposals or quotes and participate in bid evaluation and contract award process.
3. Review and accept consultant's deliverables (reports, geotechnical construction specifications and drawings).
4. Prepare internal memos summarizing recommendations to the project team related to identified risks and their mitigation measures, scope of geotechnical works for future phases, cost of engineering work for future phases and assisting project engineer in estimating the cost of Construction.
5. Collaborate with members of other disciplines to prepare multi-disciplinary documents (design basis and design report) in compliance with BC Hydro's PPM practice.
6. Assist in constructability assessment for geotechnical installation or construction of geotechnical remedial measures and enter the identified risk in the project risk register.
7. Perform Owner's Engineer Reviews in multi-disciplinary design review meetings.
8. Conduct field review and construction monitoring (assisted by QA team) or review and accept those conducted by consultants.
9. Assist project management team members in contract management, invoicing.

Qualifications and Skills:

- A degree in Civil or Geotechnical Engineering from accredited Universities in Canada.
- E5 level of experience and skill classification according to EGBC 2017 Guide of Competency Assessment, with 12 years of experience or more.
- Valid Professional Engineer certificate issued by EGBC.
- Ability to apply EGBC Engineering Professional Seal. BC Hydro uses a Digital Sign and Seal Technology. You may be required to subscribe to a digital seal technology service offered by Notarius.
- Possess EGBC Permit to Practice number, to engage in reserved practice in British Columbia.
- Current and valid BC driver's license.
- Professional Liability insurance.
- Intermediate English skills for professional environment, written and spoken.
- Familiarity with CAD systems and drawing standards.
- Ability to use standard industry design/analysis software.
- Intermediate MS Office skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote).

Specific Areas of Expertise:

The following subjects require the Proponent to either act as POR (i.e. signing and sealing the deliverables), or conduct only "Review and Acceptance" of the Work conducted by Others (Consultant). Proponent is not expected to demonstrate technical leadership in all but should be proficient in some of the following areas of practice.

- Site investigation program including: i) devising drilling and in-situ testing plan including CPT, ii) setting up instrumentation installation and its monitoring plan, and iii) devising index and advanced lab testing plan.
- Settlement calculation and preload design, including wick drain design, instrumentation set up and its monitoring program.
- Foundation design input such as: bearing capacity, uplift capacity, lateral capacity (for shallow foundation of tower structures) including passive and base resistances, frost depth and estimation of adfreezing forces.
- Conventional pile design (examples include, driven steel piles and augered cast in place (CIP) pile foundations) including those that need to tolerate seismic loadings when soil is identified as liquefiable. Pile analysis and design includes: i) preparation of a "Test Pile and Production Pile Load Testing" program, its review and acceptance, and ii) structural analysis such WEAP and incorporating its results in pile design and specifications.
- Helical pile/pier preliminary design including Test Pile and Load Test plan.
- Slope stability analysis for static and pseudo-static cases.
- Characterization of native soils to be used as backfill including: fine-grained soil and devising an appropriate installation quality assurance plan, very coarse grained (Proctor non-compliance material) soil and devising an appropriate installation quality assurance plan.
- Identification of the following risk and recommending engineering solutions to mitigate them: ARD/ML, groundwater, shoring, corrosivity, sulphate attack, swelling.
- Assessment of the likelihood of liquefaction, strain softening and cyclic mobility risks. If either of these risks exists, estimate: a) the extent of the risk zone, and b) post-seismic horizontal and vertical displacements (total and differential) and c) lateral spreading, if applicable.
- Updating BC Hydro's Transmission Division design practice such as pile design, settlement, frost action mechanism and backfill/aggregate specs.

The following subjects require the Proponent to only "Review and Acceptance" of the work conducted by Others (Consultant):

- Site Specific Seismic Ground Response Analysis and Modelling including: a) applicability of seismic scenarios (shallow, inter-slab and Cascadia types) and selected historical earthquake for a given site when the site response is being modeled, b) dynamic ground motion response analysis using 1-D wave propagation program SHAKE, and 2D modelling to identify site seismic displacements.
- Post-seismic stability of foundations and foundation soils if found susceptible to loss of strength during a seismic event.
- Design and construction monitoring of Ground Improvement (GI) work such as vibro-replacement, deep soil mixing, jet grouting or dynamic compaction, including: i) GI's QA plan, and ii) GI's Performance Verification program.
- Desktop and detailed terrain mapping and identification of geohazard using aerial and satellite imagery.
- Conducting comparative assessment of selected remedial measures for a given risk such as ground improvement methods.

Initial 1 year contract assignment, highly likely to extend based on workload and performance.

This role requires regular or occasional attendance at a BC Hydro workplace(s) and as such will be subject to BC Hydro's Contractor Vaccination Policy. This policy requires all contractor resources to be fully vaccinated by January 10, 2022 or prior to the work assignment start date whichever date is late.

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