Interface Manager

Overview

Interface Manager Jobs in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at Qsas | A PIF Company

Title: Interface Manager

Company: Qsas | A PIF Company

Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

OUR VISION

QSAS is a pioneering content creation and immersive experience company rooted in Saudi Arabia. Drawing from decades of combined team and partner experience, we specialize in designing and delivering original destinations that blend powerful storytelling with innovative technologies. At QSAS, we harness the richness of Saudi history, culture, and heritage to craft experiences that are both deeply engaging and contextually relevant. We bring together creative vision and technical expertise to shape memorable, lasting experiences — from research-driven content development to large-scale digital and physical installations.

OUR PEOPLE

Our QSAS Studio in Riyadh is continually looking for the very best talent for our growing inter-disciplinary team to create game-changing, world-class experiences. QSAS prides itself in hiring 'T–Shaped' people, meaning that while you will have a particular specialism at which you excel, your role will also include working closely with creatives in different areas of skill-set expertise and being asked to think across all design disciplines to assist in the ideation, creation and production of holistic experiences.

THE ROLE

The Interface Manager is a senior integration role within QSAS, responsible for seamless coordination between the Real Estate/Construction scope and the Immersive Experience Design scope across all active projects. You will be the single point of accountability for scope completeness across this interface — owning the full lifecycle from design coordination through construction, systems integration, and handover.

This role requires an individual equally fluent in construction/real estate delivery and experiential or exhibition project management — someone who can sit in a room with a base-build contractor and a creative technologist and make them understand each other

Key Responsibilities — Scope Integration & Gap Management

• Maintain and own the integrated WBS and the Master Scope Register across all active projects, covering both Real Estate (base build, fit-out, MEP, civil) and Experience (AV, content, interactives, graphics, fit-out) workstreams, with clearly assigned scope custodians for every line item.
• Facilitate and chair regular Interface Coordination Meetings between Real Estate and Lab workstream leads, ensuring cross-discipline alignment on scope boundaries, sequencing dependencies, and technical interface requirements (e.g. structural penetrations, power provisions, network infrastructure, HVAC zoning).
• Own the Interface Management Plan for each project: define interface points, responsible parties, communication protocols, and escalation paths. Update at each gate or project milestone.
• Own the integrated schedules and integrated budgets across the various scopes of the project
• Own the integrated risk register and issues log, providing oversight across the project workstreams
• Own the integrated view for planning and cost control across the projects

Interface Coordination & Contractor Management

• Act as the primary point of contact between Real Estate/PMC and QSAS Lab teams, ensuring design intent is preserved through contractor execution.
• Review contractor submissions (RFIs, shop drawings, method statements) for interface implications and coordinate timely responses.
• Monitor contractor and subcontractor scope boundaries on site, flagging and resolving interface conflicts before they become delays or quality issues.
• Coordinate logistics and installation phasing between base-build and fit-out contractors to avoid site conflicts and downtime.
• Conduct structured interface readiness reviews at each milestone gate before proceeding to the next phase

Programmer-Level Oversight

• Maintain a single integrated programmer schedule across Real Estate and Lab workstreams for each project, tracking key interface milestones, design freeze dates across scopes, construction access windows, and systems integration periods.
• Identify and manage cross-workstream critical path dependencies: flag where Real Estate delays will impact Experience delivery timelines and vice versa, and propose mitigation options with cost and programmer impact.
• Support Programmer Directors in developing and maintaining the Project Execution Plan, Design Responsibility Matrix (DRM), and Employer's Requirements documents, ensuring interface language is explicit and unambiguous.
• Participate in design reviews, value engineering exercises, and construction progress meetings as the integration custodian, ensuring that decisions made in one workstream are communicated and accounted for in the other.

Key Responsibilities — Change Control & Document Management

• Own the Change Control Register across interface scopes: track all scope changes originating from either Real Estate or Experience workstreams, assess cross-workstream impact, and ensure changes are formally authorized before implementation.
• Maintain interface-related documentation in the project EDMS: RFIs, TQs, coordination drawings, interface agreements, approved derogations, and close-out certificates.
• Coordinate the preparation and review of the Handover and Commissioning Plan, ensuring that systems integration, witnessing, and acceptance testing requirements are clearly defined and sequenced across Real Estate and Lab scopes.
• Support the preparation of Lessons Learned reports at project close-out, with specific focus on interface failures, scope gaps, and process improvements for future projects.

Stakeholder Alignment & Reporting

• Build and maintain productive working relationships with Real Estate stakeholders (client PMC, base-build contractor, structural engineers, MEP consultants) and QSAS Lab stakeholders (Production, Creative, Technology, Procurement) at programmer level.
• Represent QSAS as the interface authority in owner/client-led coordination forums, PMC progress meetings, and joint site inspections.
• Support the CEO and Project Managers in preparing governance-level reporting (Creative Committee, Board)
• Contribute to the development of QSAS interface management standards, templates, and processes — including the Interface Management Plan template, Scope Register framework, and DRM — so that learnings from each project systematically improve the next.

General Management

• Builds and sustains trusted working relationships across both the Real Estate and Experience disciplines, bridging technical and cultural gaps between construction-side and creative-side teams.
• Demonstrates disciplined programmer management behaviours: maintains live documentation, attends all key coordination meetings, and follows up actions to closure with urgency and rigour.
• Operates with integrity and objectivity when adjudicating scope disputes between workstreams, placing project outcomes above team or vendor loyalty.
• Manages own workload and priorities to consistently deliver interface reports, coordination outputs, and escalation recommendations on time and to the standard required by the programmer governance framework.
• Is reliable, accessible, and sets a standard of integration discipline that becomes a replicable model for future QSAS project delivery.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in construction management, Project Management, Architecture, Engineering, or related field. Postgraduate qualification in Project/Programme Management (MSc, PMP, PRINCE2 Practitioner, or equivalent) is advantageous.

Years & Nature of Experience

10–15 years of progressive project and programme management experience across construction and/or experiential sectors, including:

• 5+ years in an Interface Manager, Package Manager, or senior Project Manager role on complex, multi-discipline projects involving both base-build/fit-out and specialist content or technology scopes.
• Proven track record of managing scope interfaces on projects valued at SAR 50M+, with experience of multi-contractor environments and concurrent Real Estate and Experience workstreams.
• Experience working within or alongside Employer / Client (direct interface with QSAS's delivery obligations), giga projects, or major Saudi cultural/tourism programmes is highly valued (e.g. Diriyah, NEOM, AlUla, Qiddiya ecosystem).
• Prior experience on museum, cultural attraction, themed entertainment, or large-scale experiential projects

Technical Competencies

• Interface Management tools and methodologies — Interface Management Plans, Scope Registers, Design Responsibility Matrices (DRM), and RFI/TQ tracking systems.
• AV and experiential systems awareness — sufficient understanding of AV integration, content delivery infrastructure, interactive systems, and commissioning to manage interface with technical delivery teams.
• Document control and EDMS management — experience with Aconex, Procore, or equivalent project management information systems.
• Risk management — ability to identify, log, assess, and escalate interface risks with structured impact and mitigation analysis.

Behavioral Competencies

• Exceptional cross-disciplinary fluency — able to operate credibly with construction professionals and creative technologists in the same conversation, translating technical and process language across disciplines.
• Systematic and detail-oriented — able to hold the full scope picture in mind while tracking granular interface items and never losing sight of either.
• Culturally fluent — comfortable navigating both Saudi relational norms and the diverse international professional contexts typical of major Saudi cultural and entertainment projects.
• Clear communicator — produces clean, structured interface reports and escalation notes that allow senior leadership to make decisions quickly.
• Arabic language skills are highly advantageous. PMP, PRINCE2 Practitioner, or RICS membership is a positive indicator.