Civil Engineering Staffing Agency
Advastar has supported hundreds of infrastructure owners, utilities and engineering firms with their hiring
Civil engineering staffing for the firms designing America's infrastructure
Advastar is a civil engineering staffing agency working with the consulting firms, design-build contractors and public agencies responsible for roads, bridges, water systems and the land that everything else gets built on. We fill design-side and project-side civil roles on a direct-hire, contract, contract-to-hire and payrolling basis, and we have been doing engineering placement long enough to know the difference between a candidate who has stamped drawings and one who has only checked them.
Civil hiring has its own constraints, and they are the reason generalist agencies struggle with it. Professional licensure is not negotiable on most of these roles, and a PE is state-specific, so a strong candidate in Ohio may be six months of comity paperwork away from being useful in Texas. Public-sector and DOT work brings prequalification requirements, prevailing wage rules, and in many cases a background and residency check before anyone touches a plan set. Design firms bill their staff out, which means a hire who cannot be charged to a project at a defensible rate is a hire that gets questioned at the next partner meeting. We screen against all of it before a resume reaches you.
The civil engineers in our network sit across the full discipline. Transportation and highway designers producing DOT plan sets in OpenRoads and Civil 3D. Water and wastewater engineers sizing collection systems and treatment upgrades. Site and land development engineers taking raw acreage through entitlement, grading and stormwater. Geotechnical engineers running subsurface investigations and writing the reports that everything downstream depends on. Above them, the project managers, department heads and principals who bring the work in and are accountable for whether it makes money.
We recruit nationally, and most of our civil work is for firms expanding into a new metro, replacing a departing licensed lead or staffing up against a specific pursuit they have just won. Advastar has more than 60 years of combined staffing experience across our specialist desks, and our engineering recruiters work the civil market full time rather than treating it as an overflow category. If you are hiring civil staff and the search has stalled, we should talk about what you have actually been screening for.
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Our civil engineering talent network
- 18,400 civil engineering professionals in network
- 2,900 PE-licensed civil engineers
- 38 states with active civil placements
- 26days median time from search kickoff to offer
Civil engineering talent categories commonly supported
Department managers, office leads, principals and seller-doers. The people accountable for utilization, backlog and client relationships, hired through a confidential process when the incumbent is still in the seat.
Geotechnical engineers, field engineers and materials testing staff running subsurface investigations, writing foundation recommendations and managing CMT programs on active sites. NICET and state certifications verified.
Site civil engineers and designers taking raw land through entitlement, grading, utilities and stormwater. Residential, commercial, industrial and mixed-use, including the municipal review and resubmittal work that consumes most of the schedule.
City and county engineers, capital projects managers and staff engineers on the owner side, plus the consultants who serve them. Familiar with procurement, council presentations and the pace of publicly funded work.
Hydrology and hydraulics engineers working in HEC-RAS, HydroCAD and StormCAD, handling floodplain studies, detention design, NPDES permitting and MS4 compliance for both private developers and public agencies.
Party chiefs, survey technicians, PLS-licensed surveyors and civil CAD designers. Ground and aerial survey, construction staking, ALTA work and the drafting staff who turn field data into a usable base plan.
Roadway and highway designers, traffic engineers and DOT plan production staff who work in OpenRoads, MicroStation and Civil 3D and understand AASHTO geometry, MOT phasing and the review cycles a state DOT actually runs.
Engineers sizing collection and distribution systems, designing lift stations and pump stations and delivering treatment plant upgrades. Modeling depth in WaterGEMS, SewerGEMS and InfoWater, plus the permitting experience these projects live or die on.
Software, licensure and technical skills we screen for
- AASHTO Design Standards
- ArcGIS
- AutoCAD Civil 3D
- Construction Administration
- DOT Plan Production
- EIT /
FE - Erosion & Sediment Control
- GEOPAK
- Grading & Drainage Design
- HEC-RAS
- HydroCAD
- InRoads
- MicroStation
- NPDES & MS4 Permitting
- OpenRoads Designer
- PE Licensure
- PLS Licensure
- SewerGEMS
- StormCAD
- WaterGEMS
Real-world outcomes: civil engineering searches we have delivered
- Read Case Study: Regional Consulting Firm – Transportation Group Buildout
Regional consulting firm – transportation group buildout
- Roadway designers and traffic engineers sourced against a live DOT pursuit calendar
- Two PE-licensed project managers relocated, with comity applications tracked through offer
- Billing rate validated for each hire before submittal so utilization targets held
- Read Case Study: Municipal Water Authority – Capital Program Staffing
Municipal water authority – capital program staffing
- Capital projects manager and two staff engineers placed direct-hire
- Contract hydraulic modelers added for the peak design phase, then rolled off
- Public-sector background, residency and procurement requirements cleared before submittal
- Read Case Study: National Land Development Practice – Multi-Market Expansion
National land development practice – multi-market expansion
- Office leads recruited confidentially while incumbents remained in seat
- Site civil designers and CAD staff hired to a consistent skills bar across all four markets
- Contract-to-hire used in two markets so the firm could confirm workload before committing
What hiring managers say about Advastar
Why clients trust Advastar
Forbes 2026Best of Recruiting & Best of Staffing
Advastar was named to Forbes' 2026 Best of Recruiting and Best of Staffing lists, both compiled from independent surveys of the clients and candidates we work with.
Read the AnnouncementGE EnergyStaffing Partner of the Year
GE Energy named Advastar its Staffing Partner of the Year in 2025 through the GE Vernova supplier program.
60+ yearsof combined civil engineering expertise
Our civil engineering recruiters bring more than 60 years of combined recruiting experience to every search we run.
Tell us who you need to hire
- Tell us about the role you need to fill
- A recruiter calls you within one business day
- Together we agree on a plan to fill the role
Find your next role
- Tell us what kind of work you want
- A recruiter reviews your details and gets in touch
- We put you forward for jobs that fit
GE Energy Staffing Partner of the Year
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Our civil engineering recruiting team
David Case
President, Advastar Engineering Services
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Tim Shearer
VP & National Managing Director
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Robert Cornelio
Director of Business Development
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Jaime Summers
Senior Recruiter
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Amanda Martin
Recruiter
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Christen Trent
Recruiter
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Laura Carrillo Barrios
Recruiter
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Lisa Wombwell
Office Manager
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Frequently asked questions about civil engineering staffing
We place across the full civil discipline: transportation and highway designers, water and wastewater engineers, site civil and land development engineers, geotechnical engineers, stormwater and hydrology specialists, survey staff, civil CAD designers and the project managers, department leads and principals above them.
No. Roughly half our civil work is for consulting engineering firms, and the rest is split between design-build contractors, public agencies and utilities hiring owner-side staff and developers building in-house engineering capability.
We confirm PE and PLS licensure directly against the issuing state board before submitting a candidate, and we note which states a candidate is licensed in and which they hold comity eligibility for. If a role requires licensure in a state the candidate does not yet hold, we tell you that up front rather than letting it surface after an offer.
Yes, and we track it as part of the search. Comity and reciprocity timelines vary by board, so we flag the realistic date a candidate could stamp in your state and let you decide whether that fits the workload you are hiring against.
Our engineering practice covers the whole engineering desk, weighted toward industrial, plant and manufacturing engineering. This page is the civil discipline specifically, which has different licensure requirements, different software and a different client base.
Yes. Contract and contract-to-hire are common in civil, particularly for peak design phases, a single large pursuit or backfilling during a leave. We handle payrolling as well if you have already identified the person and just need them on someone else’s books.
For a defined role in a market where we have existing bench, first submittals are usually within a week. Median time from kickoff to accepted offer across our civil searches is around 26 days, though licensed leadership roles and confidential searches run longer.
Regularly. Replacing an office lead or department head while the incumbent is still working is the most common confidential search we run. We approach candidates without naming you until there is mutual interest and a signed understanding of the process.
Civil 3D, MicroStation, OpenRoads, GEOPAK and InRoads on the design side; HEC-RAS, HydroCAD and StormCAD for hydrology; WaterGEMS, SewerGEMS and InfoWater for utility modeling; ArcGIS for spatial work. We ask candidates what they have produced in each, not just whether they have used it.
Yes. We are familiar with public-sector procurement, prevailing wage rules, residency requirements and the approval cycles that come with publicly funded hiring, and we build them into the search timeline rather than treating them as surprises.
We recruit nationally across the United States, with active civil placements in 38 states. Most searches are for a specific office location, and we source both locally and from relocation candidates where the market is thin.
Fees depend on engagement type, role level and whether the search is contingent or retained. We will quote a specific structure once we understand the role, and there is no charge for the initial conversation about what you are trying to hire.