Career Opportunity

Urban Watershed Planning Division Manager - Wastewater Enterprise - SFPUC (0941) - (154046)

Recruitment: RTF0154045-01119288

Published: April 02, 2025

Apply using SmartRecruiters, the City and County of San Francisco's application portal.

About:

This is a Position-Based Test conducted in accordance with CSC Rule 111A.

•    Application Opening: April 2, 2025
•    Application Filing Deadline: April 23, 2025
•    Recruitment ID: PBT-0941-154046, RTF0154045- 01119288

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC)
Headquartered in San Francisco, we have 2,300 employees operating across eight counties serving more than 2.7 million customers in the San Francisco Bay Area – 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

Our Mission: To provide our customers with high quality, efficient, and reliable water, power, and wastewater services in a manner that values environmental and community interests and sustains the resources entrusted to our care.

Our Vision: We are an innovative utility leader, recognized for excellent results in service, safety, stewardship, and inclusiveness.

We are an award-winning and industry-leading utilities organization committed to our customers, community interests, and the environment. To learn more about our organization, please visit our website at https://www.sfpuc.org/.

We are proud of our infrastructure and programs, but most importantly, we value our highly qualified and dedicated workforce which ensures that this vision becomes a reality. 

To learn more about working at the SFPUC, visit our career site at https://www.sfpuc.org/about-us/careers-sfpuc

Wastewater Enterprise:
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), Wastewater Enterprise (WWE) operates and maintains San Francisco's combined sewer system to protect public health and the environment. These services extend across eight urban watersheds, more than 1,000 miles of pipe, 24 miles of transport and storage facilities and benefit every resident and visitor of San Francisco.

WWE operates three all-weather wastewater treatment plants, one wet-weather facility, 28 pump stations, eight transport/storage facilities, and 34 combined sewer discharge structures to treat an estimated 34.6 billion gallons of wastewater in a typical year.

In addition to treating wastewater, WWE also produces biosolids, a nutrient-rich soil-like product used as a synthetic fertilizer-replacement and soil amendment across the Bay Area.

Role description

Under the general direction of the SFPUC Assistant General Manager, Wastewater Enterprise (AGM, WWE), the Urban Watershed Planning Division Manager oversees development of green infrastructure plans, policies, regulations, watershed assessment and monitoring, and project design and delivery processes to protect water quality and improve the performance of San Francisco's collection system; provides Stormwater Management Ordinance (SMO) oversite and enforcement; and develops and maintains citywide strategic partnerships to scale the City’s watershed planning efforts.

Essential functions of this position include:

• Organizes, plans, manages, and directs the activities of the WWE Urban Watershed Planning Division, including supervising, recruiting, hiring, training, mentoring, and supporting highly qualified, passionate, and hard-working staff.
• Sets the strategic vision and objectives to guide the creation of plans, policies, programs, partnerships, and projects to advance the SFPUC’s city-wide watershed planning efforts, green infrastructure programs and capital projects, programmatic flood resilience efforts, multi-agency partnership strategies for the Wastewater Enterprise, and long-term climate resilience planning for the Wastewater Enterprise.
• Manages programs developed to increase flood resilience in San Francisco, such as the 100-year Storm Flood Risk Map, the Flood Risk Disclosure Ordinance, the updated Floodwater Grant Program; and a high-level Flood Resilience Working Group with representatives from across city agencies to advance a multi-agency proposal for a flood resilient building code.
• Acts as the SFPUC-wide representative for the Port’s Watershed Resilience Program, a multibillion-dollar effort to protect the city from sea level rise.
• Monitors the efficiency and effectiveness of the activities and programs of the Urban Watershed Planning Division; identifies and implements improvements.
• Interacts with the SFPUC executive team, the Commission, and deputies across city government to support decision-making within assigned work portfolios at the executive level. 
• Communicates regularly with the WWE AGM and works collaboratively and strategically on WWE priorities with other city departments.
• Represents the Division and, as needed, the WWE before legislative bodies, boards, commissions, committees, and other organizations.
• Develops and manages the Division’s budget for maximum impact on priority items.
• Oversees the strategy to identify and refine to Alternative Analysis Report (AAR) level, $100 Million in green infrastructure projects, prioritizing partnerships with other agencies to maximize multiple benefits for this 10-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP).
• Leads SFPUC coordination with the Waterfront Resilience Program to ensure that Wastewater Enterprise's long-term planning goals and regulatory needs are incorporated into the WRP's long-term, multi-billion dollar effort to protect the city from sea level rise. Also responsible for Water, Power, and Infrastructure inputs.
• Other related duties as assigned.

How to qualify

Education:  Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university in science, biochemistry, engineering, business, environmental or urban planning or closely related field; AND

Experience: Five (5) years of experience managing wastewater activities, all of which include supervising staff; AND

License: Possession of a current valid CA driver’s license.

Substitution: Additional qualifying experience as described above may be substituted for the required education on a year-for-year basis (up to two (2) years). Thirty (30) semester units or forty-five (45) quarter units equal one (1) year of work experience.

One year of full-time employment is equivalent to 2000 hours. (2000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40-hour work week.) Any overtime hours that you work above forty (40) hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.

Applicants must meet the minimum qualification requirement by the final filing date unless otherwise noted.

Desirable Qualifications:

The stated desirable qualifications may be considered at the end of the selection process when candidates are referred for hiring:

• An advanced degree in planning, science, engineering, law or related field.

Every application is reviewed to ensure that you meet the minimum qualifications as listed in the job ad. Please review our articles on Employment Application and Minimum Qualifications and Verification of Experience and/or Education for considerations taken when reviewing applications. 

Verification: Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at https://sfdhr.org/how-verify-education-requirements.

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

All work experience, education, training and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications. 

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application. 

Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification or may lead to lower scores.

Selection Procedures: After application submission, candidates deemed qualified must complete all subsequent steps to advance in this selection process, which includes the following: 

Management Test Battery (MTB) (Weight: 100%): Candidates who meet the minimum qualifications will be invited to participate in a computer-based examination designed to measure competencies in job-related areas which may include but not be limited to: Problem Solving; Leadership; Decision Making; Interpersonal skill; Human Resources Management; Team Building; Communication; Conflict Management and Process Improvement. For more information about this Management Test (and a suggested reading list) please click here.

This is a standardized examination and, therefore, test questions and answers are not available for public inspection or review.

Scores attained on the Management Test Battery will be valid and 'banked' for three years, starting from the date of the examination. This means that, during this three-year time period, you will not be required to take the Management Test Battery. The Management Test Battery may be used for many other classes, therefore your test score may be applied to one or more of these classes if you choose to apply to future recruitments. If the selection process for the future announcement is held within one year of the date of this examination and it includes the Management Test Battery, your score will be automatically applied to that announcement. However, after one year, you have the option to either (a) apply your test score to the other announcement or (b) re-take the Management Test Battery. Re-testing is permitted no sooner than one year from the date of the examination and only in association with your eligibility for another announcement for which the Management Test Battery is used. Please note that, should you re-test, your re-test score would become your official score since it is the most recent.

A passing score must be achieved on the MTB to continue in the selection process and be placed on the eligible list.

Candidates will be placed on the eligible list in rank order according to their final score. Candidate scores on this examination may also be applied to other announcements involving other job titles, when directed by the Human Resources Director.

The department may administer additional position-specific selection procedures to make final hiring decisions.

What else should I know?

Eligible List/Score Report: A confidential eligible list of applicant names that have passed the civil service examination process will be created, and used for certification purposes only. An examination score report will be established, so applicants can view the ranks, final scores and number of eligible candidates. Applicant information, including names of applicants on the eligible list, shall not be made public unless required by law. However, an eligible list shall be made available for public inspection, upon request, once the eligible list is exhausted or expired and referrals resolved. The eligible list/score report resulting from this civil service examination process is subject to change after adoption (e.g., as a result of appeals), as directed by the Human Resources Director or the Civil Service Commission. 

The duration of the eligible list resulting from this examination process will be 6 months, and may be extended with the approval of the Human Resources Director. 

To find Departments which use this classification, please see ASO FY2023-24 & FY2024-25 - FINAL 20230731.pdf. 

Certification: The certification rule for the eligible list resulting from this examination will be Rule of the List.

Terms of Announcement and Appeal Rights: Applicants must be guided solely by the provisions of this announcement, including requirements, time periods and other particulars, except when superseded by federal, state or local laws, rules or regulations. Clerical errors may be corrected by the posting the correction on the Department of Human Resources website at https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1/ .

The terms of this announcement may be appealed under Civil Service Rule 111A.35.1. The standard for the review of such appeals is ‘abuse of discretion’ or ‘no rational basis’ for establishing the position description, the minimum qualifications and/or the certification rule. Appeals must include a written statement of the item(s) being contested and the specific reason(s) why the cited item(s) constitute(s) abuse of discretion by the Human Resources Director. Appeals must be submitted directly to the Executive Officer of the Civil Service Commission within five business days of the announcement issuance date.

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview
• Equal Employment Opportunity
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• Seniority Credit
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

HOW TO APPLY
Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. Visit https://careers.sf.gov and begin the application process. 

•    Select the “Apply Now” button and follow instructions on the screen 

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com). 

Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received. 

Exam Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the exam analyst, Stefanie Lim, at SMLim@sfwater.org.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.