Civil Engineer

Location: Austin, TX

Type: Full-time

Compensation: $90,000 - $180,000 annually

Company: sanctuary.co

If you’ve spent your career in environments where everything is already figured out - established civil standards, tidy workflows, and predictable processes - you won’t find that here.

• We’re early, messy, and building as we go.
• And that’s why this role matters.

• If chaos excites you more than it scares you,
• if land speaks to you,
• and if you want to shape both the work and the way the work gets done…

Then keep reading….

Who we are

Sanctuary builds nature - led, wellness - centered communities that feel alive. Our first 135 acre residential community in the Texas Hill Country is designed with:

• 🌱 Non-toxic materials
• 💧 Clean water and filtration systems
• ⚡ EMF-conscious design
• 🌿 135 acres of preserved land and eco - sensitive planning

We are a global team of designers, architects, engineers, and dreamers building spaces that restore and inspire. For us, it’s not just where people live - it’s how they live.

We’re a team spread across 8 countries, building our 1st community in Austin, Texas. This is only the beginning. Our vision is to bring Sanctuary to major cities around the world: healthy, sovereign communities that sit on the edges of every modern metropolis.

And now, we’re searching for the civil engineer who can make this vision buildable in a way that honors the land.

🗺️ What this role really means

For too long, we’ve relied on outside consultants for grading, drainage, and site layout - and frankly, it slowed us down and diluted the beauty of what we’re building.

We’re bringing this role in-house because we need someone who sees land as a canvas, not a constraint.

You will literally shape how the community feels underfoot:

Roads that follow the land instead of fighting it

Homes tucked gracefully into natural contours

Stormwater systems that follow the logic of nature

This is a rare chance to blend engineering, architecture, sustainability, and design into one high-impact role.

Your impact will show up everywhere ✨

Your work determines:

Pace: How fast we can build.

Aesthetics: How beautifully each home sits within the land.

Sustainability: How thoughtfully we work with nature (designing roads that follow terrain, and stormwater paths that work with natural systems).

You will be the bridge between vision and reality - the person who turns world-class architecture into something constructible, intelligent, and deeply respectful of the Hill Country terrain.

What you’ll own (end-to-end)

You will lead civil engineering for our entire community - full stop.

This includes:

Site & Land Development

Full-site grading, drainage, roadway layout, and retaining design

Creating grading that makes every home feel naturally placed

Topography-driven design that minimizes cuts, scars, and cost

Permitting & Approvals

Prepare and submit permit-ready civil drawing sets for:

TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality)

Hays County

City of Dripping Springs

And own the entire permitting process end-to-end.

Cross-functional Design Leadership

Work closely with global architects, designers, and MEP teams

Collaborate daily with construction in Austin to ensure buildability

Guide design decisions using deep knowledge of Texas codes/standards

Technical Execution

Translate geotechnical & survey data into actionable plans

Develop drainage models, stormwater paths, and cut-fill strategies

Coordinate civil work packages: roads, driveways, water/sewer, utilities

Review consultant work and integrate it into Sanctuary standards

Systems & Standards

Build the foundation of Sanctuary’s civil engineering processes

Create templates, workflows, and documentation that scale to future communities

This is a role for someone who loves rolling up their sleeves, running models, walking the land, and making decisions that will shape a community for decades.

What You Bring

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering (Master’s preferred but not required)

Experience

6–10 years in site/civil design, grading, or land development

Residential, mixed-use, or master-planned community experience is a plus

Technical Strength

Grading design, stormwater management, drainage modeling

Road layouts, utility corridors, cut-fill optimization

Revit + AutoCAD Civil 3D (or equivalent tools)

Mindset

This matters more than anything else. You are someone who:

Thinks with both logic and imagination

Designs for beauty and practicality

Loves land, water, slope, and the challenge of making them work together

Thrives in ambiguity and early-stage building

Wants your engineering to actually mean something

Why This Role Is Special

Civil engineers rarely get to work this close to:

Architectural vision

Environmental conservation

Holistic community design

A founding team shaping an entirely new way of living

At Sanctuary, your work won’t disappear into a giant firm’s folder structure.

Your decisions will shape the roads people walk, the views they wake up to, the water that runs through the land, and the experience of a community designed to make life feel better.

• This is engineering with meaning.
• Engineering with heart.
• Engineering that cares about people and the planet.

If you’re the kind of engineer who wants to build more than infrastructure…

If you want to build a new way of living, we’d love to meet you !