In March 2017, Eng was named chief operating officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, then became the New York City Transit Authority's interim president for four months beginning that October.[2][5] In 2018, he became the 40th president of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR).[2][6] In that role, he enacted the initiative "LIRR Forward" to improve the system's reliability, setting on-time records in 2020 and 2021.[7]
After he retired from the LIRR in 2022, he was hired as executive vice president of the LiRo Group, a construction management firm.[8]
Eng was appointed by Massachusetts governor Maura Healey to head the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and started as general manager in April 2023.[9] At the time he assumed leadership, the MBTA faced a maintenance backlog worth an estimated $24.5 billion.[10] In his first year, he vowed to clear the slow zones that plagued many of the MBTA's lines and recover ridership lost to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.[11]
The MBTA had been widely criticized for mismanagement before Eng's appointment; the executive director of the agency's advisory board told Axios six months into Eng's term in leadership that "with Phil Eng, it's like the adults are finally in charge."[12] He is the first MBTA general manager since 2015 with previous experience leading a transit agency.[1]