Wetland Ecologist

We are looking for a mid-level Wetland Ecologist/Botanist to join our team and help clients navigate environmental permitting and compliance across Northern California.

At WRA, you’ll work alongside a close-knit group of biologists and regulatory specialists to support a wide variety of projects—from residential and commercial development to habitat restoration, mining, utilities, and open space planning. Our clients include land developers, attorneys, planners, agencies, and private landowners, and our work spans the greater Bay Area, Central Valley, and Sierra Nevada foothills.

This is a great opportunity for someone with hands-on experience conducting botanical surveys and wetland delineations who also enjoys the challenge of project management and working collaboratively in a team setting. You’ll play a key role in helping our clients achieve their goals while ensuring compliance with environmental regulations.

To be considered for this role, candidates must reside within approximately 45 minutes of one of our Northern California offices (San Rafael, Petaluma, or Emeryville). This position involves regular in-office collaboration and periodic field site visits, so we’re looking for someone who’s comfortable with a consistent commute and ready to be an active member of our team.

Your responsibilities will include: 

• Effectively manage small to medium projects.
• Lead or conduct field surveys, including biological resources site assessments, wetland delineations, stream and riparian mapping, vegetation community mapping/classification, rare plant surveys, and habitat mitigation monitoring.
• Provide oversight of field work to be completed by junior staff.
• Prepare a variety of technical reports, including biological site assessments, jurisdictional delineations, due diligence and constraints analyses, CEQA impact analyses, and rare plant surveys.
• Prepare aquatic resource regulatory permit applications.
• Assist with small to medium proposal efforts by preparing scopes of work and budgets.
• Regularly meet with senior project managers and clients to discuss project requirements and expectations.

To be successful in this role, you will need: 

• A Bachelor’s degree in biology, ecology, environmental science, or related technical field is required.
• Minimum of 3 years of environmental consulting experience.
• Direct experience preparing high quality technical biological reports to support CEQA environmental review and regulatory permit applications (e.g., biological resources technical reports and wetland delineations).
• Direct experience managing projects and interacting with clients and regulatory agency staff.
• Strong time management skills and ability to complete tasks on time and within budget.
• Attention to detail, willingness to proactively ask for guidance when needed.
• Proficiency with Geographic Positioning Systems (GPS) field data collection.
• A valid driver’s license and reliable transportation (while WRA has fleet vehicles that can be reserved for field use, during busy field seasons a truck may not always be available).
• The ability to walk, hike, and work outside for long periods of time.

Other experience you may have that we would welcome on our team includes, but is not limited to:

• Wetland delineation training and certification.
• Identification and ecology of Northern and Central California flora (San Francisco Bay Area, Central Valley, and Sierra Nevada Foothill regions).
• Aquatic resource permitting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Regional Water Quality Control Board, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, California Coastal Commission, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation Development Commission.
• Resource agency engagement and negotiations during environmental review and permit processes.
• Stream and riparian habitat restoration (knowledge of the planning and permitting processes, appropriate species, and implementation/monitoring plans and pitfalls).
• Preparing and implementing habitat mitigation and monitoring plans and other compliance reporting.
• Revegetation plan preparation, implementation, and monitoring.
• Invasive plant species management.
• CRAM assessments.

Compensation 

WRA has an established internal leveling system for our staff that maps to salary bands that have been informed by market data. Our leveling system is dependent on years of relevant industry experience, education, and the level of responsibility and autonomy at which you would be expected to operate.

The salary range for this position is $85,000 – $110,000, which represents 2 job levels that WRA is open to considering for this role. In your first conversation with our recruiter, we will discuss leveling and compensation with you to make sure that expectations are aligned.  

Who are we?

WRA’s an employee-owned environmental consultancy. We are a tenacious team of planners, engineers, and scientists, and we aim to leave the lands we love better than we found them. 

Our clients and partners hire us because we’re skilled at navigating through challenging projects involving wildlands, parks, community spaces, and housing developments. We bring over four decades of expertise, long-standing relationships, and connections to our local communities to make sure that projects are pursued in responsible ways where both people and the environment thrive. 

As an organization, we believe that independence and interdependence are not mutually exclusive. We invest in systems, processes, and employee programs to support our staff’s collective engagement and success. At the same time, we encourage our employees to operate with an ownership mindset, taking responsibility for outcomes and being true to our commitments.