28+ Civil Engineer Jobs in San Francisco, CA (Hiring Now in Aug 2026)

San Francisco is forty-nine square miles of engineering problems that never stay solved: a century-old water system fed from the Sierra, a transit network threaded under some of the steepest streets in the country, and a waterfront bracing against seismic risk and rising water. Civil engineers are the people the city and its consultants hire to keep all of it standing. As of Aug 2026, this page tracks 28+ verified civil engineer jobs in San Francisco, pulled directly from employer career pages rather than recycled from aggregator feeds, so every role listed here is genuinely open right now.

The page is built to answer the questions that actually decide a job search: what civil engineers earn here according to real payroll records, which agencies and firms are hiring at this moment, what kinds of roles are on the table from entry level to principal, and how the professional engineer license shapes your options. San Francisco publishes exact pay figures for its engineering classifications, which gives this page a verified reference point that most job boards simply cannot offer.

Start with the public record. In San Francisco city government, civil engineers work under two core civil service classifications, Engineer and Associate Engineer, the titles used across the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Public Works, and the SFMTA. The Engineer classification covers 167 employees, and city payroll shows median total compensation of $254,271 for the title, built on a median base salary of $205,066 before premiums and benefits. The distribution is strikingly tight: the middle half of earners land between $244,990 and $260,791, and the top recorded figure reaches $363,003. You can inspect the full classification in Bandana's Engineer salary data for San Francisco, which is built from actual payroll records rather than self-reported estimates.

One step down the ladder, the Associate Engineer classification covers 192 employees at a median of $225,643 in total compensation. That is the working tier where many licensed engineers spend years of their careers, and the gap between the two medians tells you what promotion into the full Engineer classification is worth in dollar terms. The Associate Engineer salary data for San Francisco breaks that figure down the same way.

Read these numbers as the public-sector reference rather than the market rate for every posting below. They describe what the city pays its own engineering staff on a published schedule, where pay moves with steps and tenure instead of negotiation. The private AEC firms in this feed set pay independently, and their offers move with project backlogs, specialty, and license status. What the payroll data gives you is a verified anchor: when a firm makes an offer, you know exactly what the city pays experienced engineers, and you can weigh the offer against that fact.

The city itself is the anchor employer. The City and County of San Francisco recruits civil engineers across its infrastructure agencies, and recent postings include a Resident Engineer (Civil Engineer) role in the Transit Division at the SF Municipal Transportation Agency, construction-phase oversight on the transit system the city depends on daily. City openings follow civil service cycles, arriving in batches around filing periods, so they reward candidates who check back consistently rather than once.

The private side of the list is dominated by national firms. Jacobs Solutions is hiring civil engineers for data center work, including a Sr Civil Engineer (Due Diligence) (Data Centers) posting and a Senior Civil Engineer SME role focused on AI data centers, a corner of the market that has grown faster than almost any other. Brown and Caldwell and Tetra Tech recruit for water and environmental infrastructure, the specialty that San Francisco's utility programs keep in permanent demand. KPFF hires on the structural side, Gannett Fleming covers transportation and delivery work, and the Department of Transportation appears in the feed with public-sector openings of its own.

The spread runs from first job to top of the profession. At the entry end, recent listings include an Entry Level Civil Engineer role and a Graduate Civil Engineer (0-3 Years Experience) posting, the classic on-ramps for engineers still working toward licensure. In the middle, titles like Associate Engineer (Civil) and Civil Design Engineer (Intermediate/Data Centers) cover the design and delivery core of the field. At the top, a Principal Civil Engineer (Water) posting shows where the water infrastructure lane leads for engineers who stay in it.

By subject matter, the list clusters into four lanes. Water and wastewater work follows the SFPUC's capital programs and the consultants that support them. Transit and transportation roles sit with the SFMTA and the firms that staff its projects, including resident engineering during construction. Structural work, always shaped by seismic performance in this city, runs through design firms and due diligence teams alike. And data center evaluation has become its own lane, with multiple postings asking civil engineers to vet sites and infrastructure for AI-driven construction. Nearly all of these roles involve site visits, agency coordination, and field time, so treat commute geography as a real filter when comparing listings.

The credential ladder in civil engineering is standardized, which makes planning straightforward. An accredited engineering degree gets you in the door. Passing the Fundamentals of Engineering exam earns the engineer-in-training designation that entry and graduate postings expect. The Professional Engineer license, issued in California by the state licensing board after qualifying experience and examinations, is the credential that authorizes responsible charge of engineering work, and it is the single strongest lever for pay and mobility a civil engineer can pull in this market. Water, transit, and due diligence employers all screen for it in senior roles, and titles like Principal Civil Engineer effectively presume it.

City classifications add a civil service layer on top: published minimum qualifications, applications accepted during open filing periods, and an examination or evaluation that places you on an eligibility list before offers go out. Private firms skip the formality but screen for the same substance, so lead your resume with project scope, your specific role on each project, and your licensure status. If you are early in your career, the practical strategy is to apply across both sectors at once and let the licensure clock run while you accumulate the project experience every employer on this page wants to see.

The payroll data makes one of the strongest cases in the country. A city classification with a median of $254,271 and a lower quartile of $244,990 describes a profession with a very high, very stable floor, and even the Associate Engineer tier below it holds a median of $225,643. Set that against the work itself, a water system, a transit network, seismic retrofits, and a private market that now includes fast-growing data center demand, and 2026 looks like a year when San Francisco needs more civil engineers than it can easily find.

The tradeoffs are the classic ones. Public careers reward patience with security, a published schedule, and predictable steps. Private careers move faster, pay for specialization, and price themselves against the public anchor. Either way, the license does the heavy lifting: engineers who hold the PE consistently enjoy the widest set of options this market offers, on either side of the public-private line.

Scroll to the live listings below, open the roles that match your specialty and license status, and apply directly on the employer's site. City postings will route you into San Francisco's civil service application process, so gather transcripts, exam records, and license numbers before you start; firm postings typically ask for a resume and project summary up front, so keep both ready. State your degree, exam progress, and licensure plainly, because reviewers in this field screen for exactly those details before anything else. Every listing on this page is verified and sourced directly from employer career pages, so each one is current and actively hiring.

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Engineer Salaries in San Francisco (real payroll data), Civil Engineer Jobs in Los Angeles County, Government Jobs in San Francisco, Entry Level Jobs.