Manager, Permitting

Overview

At Ezee Fiber, our success is built on delivering Speed, Simplicity, and Service in everything we do. Guided by our core values of Integrity, Compassion, Accountability, and Collaboration, we empower our employees to do the right thing, support one another, take ownership of their work, and work together to deliver exceptional experiences for our customers and the communities we serve.

Responsibilities

The Manager,  Permitting is a leadership role responsible for setting permitting strategy, directing execution, and ensuring permitting readiness across assigned fiber deployment markets. The Manager leads internal team members and external partners, establishes operating standards, removes jurisdictional and vendor barriers, and provides senior leadership with clear visibility into permitting risk, throughput, and forecasted impact to construction.

This role operates with significant autonomy and is accountable for translating deployment priorities into scalable permitting plans. The Manager serves as a senior point of escalation for municipalities, utilities, engineering partners, construction leaders, and permitting vendors, while building a high-performing team capable of supporting rapid FTTH expansion.

Qualifications

Strategic Leadership & Market Execution
• Develop and lead permitting strategy across assigned markets, aligning permit sequencing and jurisdictional priorities with engineering and construction deployment plans.
• Own permitting performance, cycle time, backlog, aging, risk, and escalation strategy; establish corrective actions when milestones are at risk.
• Translate business growth objectives into permitting capacity plans, staffing priorities, vendor requirements, and measurable execution standards.
• Provide executive-ready updates on permitting health, constraints, forecasted impacts, and decisions required to protect deployment schedules.
People Leadership & Organizational Development
• Lead, coach, develop, and hold accountable a team of permitting professionals; establish clear goals, performance expectations, and development plans.
• team capability through structured training, cross-market knowledge sharing, succession planning, and consistent operating practices.
• Assess workload and capacity, recommend staffing changes, and support hiring decisions as the permitting organization scales.
• Create a culture of ownership, urgency, accuracy, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Municipal, Utility & Stakeholder Leadership
• Serve as a senior company representative with municipalities, counties, state agencies, utilities, pole owners, joint-use partners, and other authorities having jurisdiction.
• Develop and maintain strategic relationships that improve permitting predictability, resolve escalated issues, and support long-term market expansion.
• Lead complex negotiations and escalations involving rights-of-way, pole attachments, easements, design requirements, permitting conditions, and jurisdictional interpretation.
• Partner with Legal, Government Affairs, Engineering, Construction, and Operations when permitting issues create material business or deployment risk.
Vendor Governance & Performance Management
• Establish vendor scopes, service expectations, quality standards, reporting requirements, and performance measures for external permitting resources.
• Review vendor performance against schedule, quality, responsiveness, and contractual commitments; implement recovery plans and escalation actions when required.
• Ensure vendor-produced permit packages and designs meet Ezee Fiber standards and jurisdictional requirements before submission.
Operational Excellence, Data & Controls
• Establish standardized permitting workflows, governance, dashboards, KPIs, and reporting cadences across assigned markets.
• Use data to identify bottlenecks, jurisdictional trends, recurring defects, capacity constraints, and opportunities to reduce permit cycle time.
• Ensure accurate and timely permit data within systems such as 3GIS, Smartsheet, ArcGIS/ESRI, and other business platforms.
• Drive process improvement, automation, documentation, and scalable controls that support growth without sacrificing quality or compliance.
Technical & Regulatory Oversight
• Provide leadership on OSP/FTTH permitting requirements, utility pole attachments, rights-of-way, public utility easements, private property considerations, and applicable municipal or agency requirements.
• Review and interpret site plans, maps, drawings, survey information, aerial imagery, geographic data, and technical documents affecting permit strategy.
• Ensure permitting practices remain aligned with applicable regulatory requirements, company standards, and construction objectives.