Senior Manager, Multimodal Design and Programs

Start Date: Mid May 2025

Salary: $98,700-$108,700

Location: Remote position or hybrid at offices in New York City. Occasional travel expected. Required travel to NYC for quarterly in-person staff meetings and travel to the annual Designing Cities Conference. We are open to all US-based candidates with permanent United States residency.

Overview

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) is seeking a forward-thinking street design expert to join our team as a full-time Senior Manager, Multimodal Design and Programs. This role will work on providing expertise on street design and technical projects on the Policy and Practice Team within NACTO.

The ideal candidate has extensive knowledge of delivering projects and programs at a local transportation department. The ideal candidate also has a sharp skill set in street design, planning, and engineering practices in North America to support NACTO members in their work toward creating safer, multimodal streets. This role is supervised by the Director of Policy and Practice and collaborates with both the Policy and Practice Team and the Engagement Team at NACTO. Interest in transportation is required while significant experience working in transportation is essential.

Who we are

NACTO is a nonprofit association of 100 major North American cities and transit agencies (and counting), formed to exchange transportation ideas, insights, and practices and cooperatively approach national transportation issues. Our members include cities such as Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Houston, and transit agencies such as LA Metro and Chicago Transit Authority. Our mission is to build cities as places for people, with safe, sustainable, accessible, and equitable transportation choices that support a strong economy and vibrant quality of life. Our staff team is passionate, outcomes-oriented, and committed to challenging the status quo in transportation and raising the bar for city streets. Our values include fostering community, centering justice, striving for impact, and leading with imagination.

NACTO's Policy & Practice Team is a multidisciplinary team charged with developing and uplifting policies and design practices that result in equitable, safe, and sustainable cities. The team brings communications expertise, deep policy knowledge, and technical know-how to NACTO's work. We collaborate with the Engagement Team to support the city transportation and transit agency professionals working in our member agencies with value-aligned design guidance, program development, and policy recommendations.

Who you are

You’re an expert when it comes to street design, and you’re consistently looking for ways to uplevel your street design knowledge. You’re committed to being on top of best practices, trends, and innovations in street design so that you can act as a trusted expert and connector for NACTO members as they embark on making city streets safer. Resource-sharing is a core value of yours, and you seek to actively share best practices in street design so that you can collaborate effectively with NACTO members on delivering projects and programs at their transportation agencies.

You also have broad experience in technical practice, including knowledge of safety programs, shared micromobility, urban design, and curb management across city streets in North America. You’re deeply curious about this area of work and comfortable doing research to stay on top of trends as well as collaborating with consultants to offer quality technical advice to NACTO members.

Because street design and technical practice work can be complex and multilayered, you bring other voices to the table in order to provide valuable information and resources for NACTO members by building partnerships with aligned organizations. You are an enterprising and motivated partnership builder. You look for gaps and opportunities in street design and technical practice and seek the best experts in the field to lend their perspectives in order to flesh out the conversation. You value being timely, reliable, and communicative and you have a well-oiled system for tracking partner communications and projects.

You’re comfortable with sharing your street design and technical practice expertise as a facilitator, presenter, and activator. You know how to inspire and energize a group of people whether it is in a webinar, in person during a conference, or acting as a panel moderator. You’re confident in your ability to connect with members and know how to welcome them into a space, draw on their opinions and lived experiences, and support them in using relevant street design research to challenge the status quo as transportation practitioners. You value making street design engaging and exciting for our member practitioners and consistently connect with them (and help them to connect with one another) both in person and in virtual communities.

To be successful in this job, you will excel in the following core competencies:

Area #1: Street design expertise and guidance

• You have extensive knowledge of street design, planning, and engineering practices in North America as well as experience with transportation project development, design, and delivery.
• You understand how to manage and own street design projects including having a deep understanding of how to take an idea from concept to completion, coordinating across a transportation agency to keep the project moving in an organized fashion, and collaborating with transportation practitioners and stakeholders to reach the desired deliverable.
• You are committed to cultivating written street design content that is accessible, inspiring, and actionable for NACTO members, including fact sheets, case studies, website content, guidance, and comment letters. Your written work goes beyond the traditional view of transportation to promote experimentation and innovation and describes streets that are safer and more equitable. You craft deliverables that spark ideas, deepen connections, and sustain momentum across our network of local transportation practitioners.
• You use your street design knowledge to review street design plans, guidelines, and relevant policies for alignment with NACTO guidance and current best practices. You know how to be a trusted, authoritative voice and partner as you communicate with NACTO members on best practices around street design expertise by listening to understand and sharing the why behind your recommendations, including relevant research and trends in the field.

Area #2: Technical practice guidance

• You have a broad knowledge of best practices in safety programs, shared micromobility, transit, urban design, community engagement, and curb management across city streets in North America. Though you don’t have to carry deep expertise in these aspects of transportation, you stay abreast of research and innovations in order to ensure that you are able to communicate these trends and opportunities with NACTO members.
• You are comfortable identifying and collaborating with technical experts and consultants who will support you in bringing a high level of expertise to NACTO’s work and products in these areas. You understand how transportation departments and local government are structured, so you can find and connect with local experts.
• You use your broad technical knowledge to research best practices in these related transportation topics and fields. You know how to be a trusted, guiding voice and partner as you work with NACTO members, partners, and consultants in managing projects and programs that advance NACTO’s mission and support its members.

Area #3: Building partnerships

• On behalf of NACTO, you build and maintain relationships with national and regional transportation organizations working in street design and practice such as ITE and AASHTO. You seek out meaningful opportunities to collaborate with researchers to advance progressive street design, including via the Transportation Research Board and University Transportation Centers. You engage public health organizations and other aligned fields for collective impact.
• You act as a thoughtful, organized, and trusted partner as you develop relationships with aligned organizations. You commit to being a timely, proactive, and organized communicator and project manager as you embark on creating new partnerships and sustaining current partnerships.
• You commit to maintaining an accessible, user friendly infrastructure for tracking and maintaining relationships and keeping the NACTO team apprised of the current status of all partner relationships.

Area #4: Members

• You connect with NACTO members using active listening and demonstrating empathy, and look for trends in order to ensure that NACTO is responsive to member needs. Your thorough understanding of NACTO’s scope of work allows you to have the most effective and mission-aligned member communications, both written and verbal. Because you understand the unique experiences and complexities of member experiences, you are able to provide meaningful recommendations and develop content that speaks to these experiences.
• You connect with both the Policy and Practice Team and the Engagement Team to share trends on the highs, lows, questions, and requests emerging from our membership base. By collecting, categorizing, and summarizing findings from members, you’ll be able to perform independent research to fill gaps in self-reported information.
• You actively translate your research and writing into engaging and thought-provoking in person and virtual sessions for NACTO members. You present and share NACTO work at webinars, conferences, and other events as requested and facilitate Peer Network meetings as requested. You are visible,communicative, and responsive to members when they reach out via email for support and resource requests by making suggestions and connections accordingly.

Area #5: Strong project management, collaboration, and delegation skills

• Ability to use self-direction, self-motivation, and organizational skills to drive your own workstream and schedule in order to complete your projects in a timely and thoughtful manner.
• Leading, collaborating, and making recommendations on cross-cutting projects including contributing to content, making presentations at all-staff meetings and events, and proactively communicating with members and responding to member requests. Implementing and championing NACTO’s organizational infrastructure including community principles and project management practices. Owning and managing team and organization-wide projects as requested.
• Ability to proactively and thoughtfully delegate up, down, and across to move projects forward. Ability to operate as an involved, strategic, collaborative, and equitable people manager in the event that there is organizational need in the future.

Qualifications

NACTO does not have minimum requirements for education or professional experience. We encourage all candidates with relevant experiences and professional backgrounds to apply. Generally, we expect qualified candidates would have the following baseline experience for a Senior Manager at NACTO:

Senior Manager

• A proven track record and moderate to significant professional experience as a subject matter expert in at least three core responsibilities of the role.
• A proven track record and moderate professional experience with collaborating on strategic visioning.
• A proven track record and moderate to significant experience as a project manager on both short-term projects and large scale, multi-year projects.
• A proven track record and at least moderate experience engaging with race, equity, and transportation policy issues.
• A proven track record and at least moderate experience with collaborating with a diverse team across varying career levels in a cross-functional, collaborative work environment.

How to Apply

Please use this application to apply for the role. The application is due by Monday, March 24th, at 5:00 pm EST. Please note that we cannot accept late submissions. No calls or email inquiries please.

NACTO engages in a negotiation-free practice for salaries and benefits that is aligned with our internal equitable compensation plan. We seek to offer competitive salaries and benefits that are aligned with market research and the requirements of the role. All salary offers are based on a combination of factors including years of experience and core competencies instead of a candidate’s ability to negotiate a salary.

NACTO is committed to workplace diversity and inclusion. We are equal opportunity employers and do not discriminate in hiring or employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender identity, marital status, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. We offer competitive salaries based on a nonprofit scale and commensurate with experience. Benefits include accrued PTO and family leave; healthcare, dental and vision insurance; expanded disability and life insurance; retirement savings plan; and pre-tax commuter benefits.