Senior Level Planner (Los Angeles)

Senior Campus Planner - Los Angeles

Sasaki is seeking a Senior-level Planner to join our Los Angeles studio. Sasaki is a planning and design firm of about 300 professionals working throughout the United States and internationally from our offices in Boston, Massachusetts; Denver, Colorado; Brooklyn, NY; and Los Angeles, CA.

The successful candidate will manage multidisciplinary teams including internal teams and external consultants, lead and supervise content development and deliverables for master planning projects, and collaborate on project pursuits and BD initiatives in collaboration with the Sasaki principals. The role

requires a positive outlook and the ability to manage multiple planning projects simultaneously.  The ideal candidate is a creative professional with experience with civic/urban planning and/or in higher education or institutional planning projects. The candidate should have experience with project

management in a design office setting and an enthusiasm/interest in applying these skills to urban and/or campus planning projects.  The role requires the ability to integrate and coordinate the work of planners, data analysts, architects, urban designers, landscape architects, engineers and graphic designers. 

We are committed to personal growth and individual well-being, and offer a variety of resources to support career development, including in-house training, mentoring, professional association memberships, and licensing examination reimbursement.

Responsibilities: 

• Manage interdisciplinary teams and collaborate with project team members, consultants, and
• clients 
• Manage and contribute to the development of project content and deliverables for master plans
• Work with internal and client teams to engage diverse stakeholders in planning processes
• Develop detailed planning reports and graphics
• Manage data assessment tasks 
• Manage project budgets, contracts, and staffing 
• Lead/collaborate on with marketing and business development initiatives 

Core Qualifications

The list below describes the optimal qualifications of the mid to senior-level planner to meet typical project needs for campus projects. We encourage people to apply for the position if they meet most of these attributes:

• Curiosity and enthusiasm for master planning. Experience with campus planning is a plus.
• Strong organizational and management skills, with attention to detail
• Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills 
• Demonstrated ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously
• Experience managing an interdisciplinary design team in an office setting OR experience working within an institutional campus planning office
• Experience with project management, including managing project budgets, timelines, internal teams, and external consultants
• Knowledge of and comfort with Adobe Indesign and Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Excellent written and verbal communication (planning reports, memoranda, and day-to-day communication)
• Excellent quantitative and qualitative analysis skills to support data-informed planning processes and space assessments
• Experience developing presentations and master plan documents 
• Strong presentation/layout skills, graphic communication, and storytelling (informational graphicsproduction; layout for presentations, reports, and engagement materials; mapping and 2D diagrams)
• Ability to research and synthesize complex planning concepts
• Capacity for project-related travel 
• Master’s degree in planning or a related field OR a Bachelor’s degree in planning or related field with a preference for one to two years of relevant experience 

Additional Valued Skills and Characteristics

Planners at Sasaki share a common set of core competencies, but also have a range of complementary strengths and interests. The list below describes some additional skills and characteristics desirable in candidates:

•  Experience with project pursuits and BD in a design firm including developing proposals and project scopes and participating in project interviews
• Experience in a higher education or institutional context or with higher education clients
• Beneficial to have previous experience with academic space planning
• Knowledge of and comfort with other Adobe programs (AI, PSD), AutoCAD, Sketchup, Rhino and/or other design programs
• Unique superpower that we haven’t thought to ask about, but that will make an impact on our campus planning projects and practice
• Degree in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, or another design field