What are the responsibilities and job description for the Design Project Coordinator-Water position at City of Rochester, MN?
POSITION DESCRIPTION
www.rpu.org
RPU, a division of the City of Rochester, MN, is the largest municipal utility in the State of Minnesota. RPU serves over 57,000 electric customers and 42,000 water customers in a 60 square mile service area and has revenues nearing $161 million annually.
Nature of Work
This position is directly responsible for planning and directing activities concerned with water infrastructure design to ensure proper installation, operation, maintenance and service. This position takes responsibility for coordinating these projects from inception through completion, including coordination with other City of Rochester Departments and private engineering firms as well as coordination between the engineering, maintenance and construction, purchasing, stores, and accounting sections within the utility.
Pay
2025 salary range is $88,718 to $104,375, depending on qualifications with advancement to $130,469
Available Positions:
The City of Rochester will not sponsor or transfer visas for this position including F1 OPT STEM.
To have your application considered in the first round of application review, please submit your application before December 29th, 2025.
The City of Rochester is committed to a community where all members feel a sense of belonging. We commit to recognizing the diversity of our community members, listening to ALL voices and providing equitable services to create an inclusive place to live, play and work.
We believe EQUITY should be at the center of all our work. We strive to represent our community in our teammates, as we know that diverse and inclusive teams are more innovative, and have an empowering impact on the work, progress and culture of our community.
It takes us all working together
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The work below is representative of the scope of work performed within this job classification. Individual job duties will vary based on work assignment or location.
- Enterprise Software Implementation, Utility Performance, and Compliance
- Builds and refines the asset database and asset hierarchy for the water utility in coordination with GIS staff.
- Leads the Enterprise Asset Management System (EAMS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) program upgrades on behalf of the water utility by coordinating business process planning, system configuration, data migration, and utility-wide adoption.
- Administers the backflow prevention program by ensuring proper installation, testing, and compliance through report tracking, customer notifications, coordination with testers, and enforcement.
- Implements the American Water Works Association (AWWA) Partnership for Safe Water program and Benchmarking program by managing data collection, assessing performance, and driving continuous improvement in water quality and operations.
- Consolidates utility data by gathering, validating, and organizing information to support performance management, key performance indicators, and data analytics.
Design Coordination
- Prepare water infrastructure designs and plans for construction, modification, or renovation of water distribution systems, water towers, municipal wells, and pumping stations.
- Attend pre-construction and pre-development meetings as needed.
- Review and approve plans and specifications from the City of Rochester and private engineering firms to determine whether they meet requirements.
- Provide technical direction for planning and design of water utility projects.
- Facilitate and manage design requirements.
- Close and reconcile distribution work orders and assure proper as-built information is entered into the GIS records.
- Obtain necessary utility easements as needed.
- Obtain necessary State, County, Township, and City permits associated with projects as needed.
- Analyze and compile data received from engineers to prepare budget estimates
- Determine most feasible approach to meeting budget estimates.
- Perform hydraulic modeling, fire flows, and other modeling activities.
- Edit and maintain water infrastructure information within the GIS System.
- Keep and maintain records of new development projects within the community.
- Size water meters and determine the Water Reclamation Plant Investment Fees.
- Provide direct technical support for implementation and configuration of enterprise software such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and enterprise asset management (EAM) systems.
- Identify and implement process improvements for work assignments to field staff.
- Perform analytical tasks to support data driven decisions by the Water Utility.
- Assure compliance with RPU, AWWA, MDH, EPA, City of Rochester and all other relevant regulations, construction and design standards, project goals, and objectives.
- Participate and contribute to the development of a project's scope and content.
- Maintain regular communication with all public departments, contractors, and consultants throughout each project.
- Resolve disputes and disagreements with developers, consultants, contractors, and other RPU customers that relate to projects that you design and issue.
- Represent RPU at City development meetings and other meetings involving other utilities, developers, consultants, and contractors.
- Review building permit applications.
- Review and respond to Community Development referral requests.
- Administer Backflow Prevention Program for RPU based on requirements of the Minnesota Department of Health and Minnesota Rules Chapter 4714.
- Essential Functions
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Education and Experience
A Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Industrial Technology, the water trades or closely related field with one (1) year of experience in infrastructure design, construction, drafting, project management, or other related field.
OR
An Associate's degree in Engineering, Construction Management, Industrial Technology, the water trades or closely related field AND four (4) years of full-time employment experience in infrastructure design, construction, drafting, project management, or other related field.
OR
An equivalent combination of education and experience sufficient to successfully perform the essential duties of the job may also be considered.
Licenses and Certifications
Valid driver's license.
Desirable Qualifications
Experience in water system design, construction, drafting, project management for a municipal water utility, or consulting firm doing work for a water utility.
Considerable experience with Microsoft Office, ArcGIS, hydraulic modeling software, SAP, AutoCAD, other computer software and office equipment
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Physical and Environmental Criteria
In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the following represents the physical and environmental demands for this position. The employee must be able to perform the essential functions with or without accommodation.
In consideration of the overall amount of physical effort required to perform this position, the work is best described as Sedentary Work: Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or a negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects, including the human body. Sedentary work involves sitting most of the time. Jobs are sedentary if walking and standing are required only occasionally and all other sedentary criteria are met.
Physical demands that may be required continuously (2/3 or more of the time), frequently (1/3 to 2/3 of the time), and occasionally (up to 1/3 of the time) are noted below:
Continuous demands: sitting
Frequent demands: fine dexterity
Occasional demands: standing, walking, climbing, balancing, reaching, kneeling, crouching, crawling
Sensory requirements necessary in the performance of the essential functions of this position include sight, hearing and touch, taste and smell
Environmental conditions
Work is primarily performed indoors with no exposure to temperatures and external elements. Occasionally, work may be required outdoors and subject to the following factors:
Extreme cold (below 32 degrees)
Extreme heat (above 100 degrees)
Work outdoors (no effective protection from weather)
Work at heights (such as on scaffolding or ladders)
Walk on uneven ground (gravel, rocks, mounds, construction sites)
Salary : $88,718 - $130,469