Water Resources Engineer

Why RTI

RTI International is an independent, scientific research institute dedicated to improving the human condition. Our vision is to address the world's most critical problems with technical and science-based solutions in pursuit of a better future. Clients rely on us to answer questions that demand an objective and multidisciplinary approach—one that integrates expertise across social, statistical, data, and laboratory sciences, engineering, and other technical disciplines to solve the world’s most challenging problems.We believe in the promise of science and technical solutions, and we push ourselves every day to deliver on that promise for the good of people, communities, and businesses in the US and around the world. If you are looking for the opportunity to make a real difference, RTI is the place for you.

About the Hiring Group

Are you passionate about applying engineering, data, and modeling to solve complex water challenges? RTI’s Water, Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Energy Solutions (WARES) Group is seeking a motivated Water Resources Engineer to support both our hydrology and flood risk and our Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) team. Across these complementary practice areas, we develop innovative models, analytical methods, and decision-support tools that help clients understand flood hazards, manage water systems, and make informed planning and operational decisions.

Our flood risk work supports hydropower owners, dam safety programs, government agencies, and the broader water resources community through precipitation-frequency analysis, probable flood hazard assessments, unsteady hydraulic modeling, reservoir analysis, and downstream consequence analysis. Our IWRM work combines hydrologic and water-system operations modeling, geospatial and statistical analysis, and computational tool development to support integrated planning, resilient infrastructure, and sustainable management of river basins and shared water resources.

The ideal candidate will bring a strong foundation in water resources engineering and an interest in applying programming, data analysis, and modeling across several of the areas described below; experience in every area is not required.

Why Join Us?

• Contribute to high-impact domestic and international projects that reduce flood risk, strengthen water security, and improve water resources planning and management.
• Apply advanced modeling, data science, and computational tools to help clients make informed decisions about floods, reservoirs, river basins, and water infrastructure.
• Expand your technical expertise while advancing modeling technologies, analytical methods, and decision-support tools.
• Collaborate with engineers, scientists, software developers, and water resources experts in a supportive, multidisciplinary research environment.
• Build your professional profile through technical leadership, publications, conference presentations, and proposal development.

This position can be either based in RTI’s U.S. office in Research Triangle Park, NC, or may be considered for fully remote work. Teleworking is permitted within the United States.

What You'll Do

You will support projects spanning flood risk analysis, hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, reservoir and river-system operations, and integrated water resources planning. Your work will include data analysis, model development and calibration, interpretation and communication of results, and development of computational tools that help clients assess hazards, evaluate alternatives, and make informed planning and operational decisions.

Essential Duties:

• 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.

What You'll Need

Minimum Education & Experience

• 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.

Minimum Qualifications:

Applicants should demonstrate the following qualifications:

• 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.).  

Preferred Qualifications:

Candidates may bring deeper experience in flood risk, IWRM, computational methods, or a combination of these areas. Experience with any subset of the following is beneficial; experience in all areas is not expected.

• 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.

EEO & Pay Equity Statements

For San Francisco, CA USA Job Postings Only: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Further information is available here.

RTI accepts applications to our job openings from candidates with criminal histories or conviction records in accordance with all applicable laws, including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

For Applicants in Massachusetts Only: It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

The anticipated pay range for this role is listed below. Our pay ranges represent national averages and may vary by location as a geographic differential may be applied to some locations within the United States. RTI considers multiple factors when making an offer including, for example: established salary range, internal budget, business needs, and education and years of work experience possessed by the applicant. Further, salary is merely one element to our offer.

At RTI, we demonstrate our commitment to rewarding individual and team achievement through a total rewards package. This package includes (among other things) a competitive base salary, a generous paid time off policy, merit based annual increases, bonus opportunities and a robust recognition program. Other benefits include 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, and numerous other offerings to support a healthy work-life balance.

Hiring Salary Range