Most job postings in project controls describe a role. Very few describe what happens after you take it. This is an attempt at the second thing: what progression through scheduling and project controls actually looks like at Stelic, rung by rung, with the salary bands we publish in our postings.

One thing to know up front. Our entry-level job description says growth is based on “competency, performance, professionalism, and readiness rather than tenure alone,” and we mean it. Nobody is waiting out a clock.

The bar underneath every role

On the first episode of our podcast, As Planned, our EVP put it this way when asked why so many schedules go unused on projects:

“I don’t think it’s a contractor problem, an owner problem, or a tool problem. I think it’s your project controls individual — there’s a minimum knowledge base you need to have.”

That minimum knowledge base is construction itself. P6 proficiency gets checked at every level below, but a scheduler who can run the software and can’t hold a conversation about concrete, rebar, or trade sequencing loses the room on site. Every step on this ladder is really about widening that knowledge base and being trusted with more of the conversation.

Project Controls Analyst

Remote | $55,000 to $75,000 | Entry level

This is where you start if you have a degree in construction management, engineering, or project management and little or no industry experience. It is a structured development role, not a back-office data entry job. You shadow senior project controls people on active projects, support schedule reviews and update preparation, maintain trackers and reporting tools, and sit in project meetings from day one.

The training covers CPM scheduling principles, Primavera P6, cost management and forecasting, reporting and dashboarding, and risk management, spread across live work on data center, life sciences, and infrastructure projects. Responsibility grows as your skills do. From this seat you can move toward scheduling, cost management, or analytics depending on where you show strength and interest.

Junior Portfolio Project Scheduler

Remote | $80,000 to $110,000 | Roughly 1 to 3 years of experience

The next step trades breadth for the beginnings of ownership. You work across a portfolio of projects and clients rather than a single job: maintaining P6 schedules, keeping WBS structures, activity coding, calendars, and logic relationships clean, collecting updates from project managers and engineers, and reviewing those updates for accuracy before they go anywhere.

You also start doing the analytical work that separates schedulers from schedule administrators. Identifying upcoming milestones, delayed activities, critical path items, and schedule risks. Supporting baseline development and change analysis under senior guidance. Writing the variance notes and update narratives that clients actually read.

Project Scheduler

On-site | $110,000 to $140,000 | Roughly 3 to 5 years of experience

At this level you embed with a project team in the field. Our current opening is on a large data center program in Atlanta, working directly alongside the Senior Project Scheduler, and the compensation reflects the on-site commitment: subsistence of up to $3,000 per month, relocation reimbursement up to $10,000, and performance bonuses on top of base salary.

The work changes character here. You validate percent complete by walking the site, not by taking someone’s word for it in a phone call. You collect progress from superintendents, trade partners, and commissioning teams face to face. You track long-lead equipment and procurement impacts, support recovery planning and scenario modeling, and learn commissioning sequences for critical power and mechanical systems, which is knowledge that data center clients pay a premium for and generalist schedulers rarely have.

This is the rung where the podcast quote above stops being abstract. The field will test whether you understand the work well enough to keep a seat in the room.

Senior Project Scheduler and beyond

Senior schedulers own the schedule on major programs, mentor the analysts and junior schedulers below them, and carry the client relationship on the controls side. From there, paths open toward leading project controls across programs and, for some, into firm leadership. The two people on that first podcast episode both came up through project controls work, which tells you something about where the role can go here.

The cost engineering branch

Scheduling is not the only track. We regularly hire Cost Engineers, and analysts who show strength in forecasting can grow in that direction instead: establishing and maintaining cost baselines, building Cost Breakdown Structures, and preparing EAC, ETC, and monthly cost forecasts on large-scale construction projects.

The setting you’d do it in

Stelic is a women-owned construction and project management partner, and a remote-first company with projects across the United States. Analyst and portfolio scheduler roles are fully remote. Embedded project roles are on-site by design, because that is where the work is, and they carry the subsistence and relocation support described above.

The project exposure is the part that compresses careers. Our clients include Kiewit, CRB, Eli Lilly, Clark Construction, Amtrak, Universal Studios, and Amgen, across data centers, life sciences, infrastructure, and federal work. A few years here can put more complex program experience on your resume than a decade somewhere quieter.

Alongside salary, every role carries health, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k) with company match, PTO and paid holidays, and spot bonuses. We also provide training and certification support.

If this sounds like your next few years

Open roles are posted on our careers page. If nothing fits right now, our talent pool is real and reviewed continually, not a resume black hole; include a cover letter telling us what kind of work you want to be doing.

And if you want to hear how our team actually talks about scheduling before you apply, start with episode one of As Planned, “The schedule nobody reads.” It is a fair preview of the standard you would be hired into.