About The Role

Role Description

The Office of the City Administrator is seeking a Principal Project Analyst to join our team, where you will play a key role in a portfolio of complex, high-priority initiatives led by the City Administrator’s Office. This is a unique opportunity to work as a senior generalist on a wide range of new and time-sensitive projects across City divisions and departments, including work related to real estate, technology, policy, operations, and interdepartmental initiatives. The ideal candidate is a highly skilled analyst with strong project management skills who is intellectually curious, communicates complex ideas clearly and effectively, enjoys collaboration, research, and strategic problem-solving, is comfortable bringing structure to complex or underdefined issues, and takes pride producing thoughtful, high-quality work.

You’ll work closely with senior leaders, department partners, and other stakeholders on sensitive, consequential, and politically nuanced issues in a fast-paced, high-performing, and supportive environment. If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work improving government, this might be the position for you.

Under the general direction of the Project Director, you will

Project Leadership & Delivery

Lead the planning and advancement of complex initiatives and workstreams.
Independently drive workstreams forward, maintaining ownership of follow-through and surfacing risks, decisions, and issues requiring escalation.
Manage competing priorities and adapt quickly as new leadership questions and time-sensitive assignments arise, while maintaining high-quality results.

Research, Analysis & Strategic Problem-Solving

Bring structure to complex or underdefined issues and develop effective analytical approaches.
Conduct independent research and policy analysis to understand complex issues and support strategic decision‑making.
Synthesize complex legal, operational, and stakeholder information, identifying the findings and insights that matter most.
Interpret evidence, assess implications and tradeoffs, and develop clear, actionable recommendations, including processes, operating models, or other solutions where appropriate.

Stakeholder Engagement & Cross-Departmental Coordination

Plan and facilitate stakeholder engagement, meetings and multi‑stakeholder processes.
Lead and coordinate work across organizational boundaries without formal authority, navigating differing responsibilities and perspectives and recognizing when disagreements or decisions should be surfaced or escalated.

Executive Communication & Decision Support

Prepare concise briefings, slide decks, written analyses, and recommendations for senior leadership.
Distill research, analysis, and stakeholder perspectives into clear, actionable insights that support decision-making on complex, sensitive, or underdefined issues.
Respond to sensitive information requests with discretion, professionalism, and sound judgment.

Minimum Qualifications

Education: Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university

Experience: Five (5) years full-time equivalent experience performing professional-level analytical work. Qualifying professional-level analytical work includes analysis, development, administration, and reporting in major programs and functions of an organization in the areas of budgets, contracts, grants, policy, or other functional areas related to the duties of positions in the 182X Class series.

Substitution

Possession of a graduate degree (Master's degree or higher) from an accredited college or university with major coursework in specialized subject matter areas such as public or business administration, management, business law, contract law, public policy, urban studies, economics, statistical analysis, finance, accounting or other fields of study closely related to the essential functions of positions in the Class series may be substituted for one (1) year of required experience.

Additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree on a year-for-year basis (up to a maximum of 2 years). Thirty (30) semester units or forty-five (45) quarter units equal one year.

Note(s)

One-year full-time employment is considered equivalent to 2000 hours (2000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40 hour work week). Any overtime hours that you work above forty (40) hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.
Applicants must meet minimum qualification requirements by the final filing date unless otherwise noted.

Desirable Qualifications

The stated desirable qualifications may be used to identify job finalists at the end of the selection process when candidates are referred for hiring. Desirable experience includes:

Leading Complex, Cross-Functional Work – leading or advancing complex projects or initiatives involving multiple functions, departments, or organizational units, particularly in a large or decentralized organization.
Conducting Qualitative and Organizational Research – conducting stakeholder interviews, qualitative research, process analysis, organizational analysis, or similar work to understand complex problems and identify opportunities for improvement.
Communicating with Executive Audiences – preparing concise written analyses, presentations, briefings, or recommendations for senior leaders and other decision-makers.
Designing and Improving How Organizations Work – developing or implementing improvements to policies, processes, operating models, organizational structures, roles and responsibilities, or other ways of working.
Navigating Diverse Stakeholder Perspectives – facilitating groups or coordinating work among stakeholders with differing responsibilities, priorities, expertise, or organizational interests.
Government or Other Complex Institutional Environments – Familiarity with government operations or experience working in another large, complex institutional or bureaucratic environment. Experience with the City and County of San Francisco is helpful but not required.
Breadth Across Public Administration or Related Functions – Familiarity with one or more areas such as policy, budgeting, contracting, capital planning, real estate, technology, organizational development, or other functions relevant to public administration. Deep expertise in any particular subject area is not required.

Verification

Please make sure it is clear in your application exactly how you meet the minimum qualifications. Every application is reviewed to ensure that you meet the minimum qualifications as listed in the job ad. Please review our articles on Employment Application and Minimum Qualifications and Verification of Experience and/or Education for considerations taken when reviewing applications. Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point in the application and/or departmental selection process.

Note: Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification or may lead to lower scores. Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco. Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application. 

What else should I know? 

Selection Procedure 

The selection process will include evaluation of applications in relation to minimum requirements and assessment of candidates’ job-related knowledge, skills and abilities. Depending on the number of applicants, the Department may establish and implement additional screening mechanisms to evaluate candidate qualifications. This typically includes an oral interview and/or a written or performance exercise. 

If this becomes necessary, only those applicants whose qualifications most closely meet the Department needs will be invited to continue in the selection process. Applicants meeting the minimum requirements are not guaranteed advancement in the selection process.  

To find Departments which use this classification, please see:  Position Counts by Job Codes and Departments.   

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:  

Information About the Hiring Process
Conviction History
Employee Benefits Overview   
Equal Employment Opportunity  
Disaster Service Worker
ADA Accommodation
Veterans Preference
Seniority Credit in Promotional Exams
Right to Work
Copies of Application Documents
Diversity Statement

How to Apply

All job applications for the City and County of San Francisco must be submitted through our online portal by the filing deadline. 

Your application MUST include a supplemental questionnaire. Please follow the instructions at the top of the page to submit the supplemental questionnaire.   Only applicants who submit both an application AND supplemental questionnaire will be considered for participation in the department's selection process.
All work experience, education, training and other information provided should also be included in the work history and/or education sections of your application and is subject to verification. 
You may contact  Melanie S. Bautista  via email at [email hidden]   with questions regarding this opportunity.
Late or incomplete submissions will not be considered. Mailed, hand delivered or faxed documents/applications will not be accepted. Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application.

Applicants will receive a confirmation email from  [email hidden]  that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records.  Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.