Estimator

About the Role

The Estimator owns the budget presented to clients across the firm’s residential portfolio, from conceptual ROM through pre-construction agreement and contract execution. Reporting to the Chief of Production, this person is responsible for producing numbers the firm can confidently stand behind.

This role requires discipline, clarity, and sound judgment. The Estimator does not shape the budget around what a client hopes it will be; they build it around the actual scope, assumptions, risks, and realities of the project. They identify missing scope before the contract is signed, confirm assumptions in writing, and make their thinking visible. They are willing to challenge ambiguity early because they care more about accuracy, accountability, and protecting the work than simply being agreeable.

Key Outcomes

• Estimates are accurate. Five percent is the floor on fixed-price work. At five, a third of margin is gone. Beyond five, the firm absorbs unacceptable losses.
• Scope gaps are caught at the desk. For example, the J-bolts and hold-downs and threaded rod that the concrete sub assumes the framer will set, that the framer assumes the concrete sub will set. Condensate lines, non-shrink grout at steel column bases, conduit for low voltage subs often get missed. Caught before contract execution, the gap costs nothing. Discovered in the field it can lead to huge delays and cost overuns.
• Subcontractor bids are fully vetted, on time, with full coverage. RFP’s are sent to at least two qualified subs for every trade. Bids leveled on scope and quality, not just price. Subs in this market often deliver bids that look like a single line item with exclusions not clearly stated; the Estimator reads those bids against historical knowledge of which sub historically misses what. Clarifications are requested in writing and incorporated into the subcontract once signed.
• Critical-path schedules hold up under contract. The schedule reflects real durations and sequencing constraints, not defaults. General conditions are estimated based on this schedule. A thorough understanding of trade sequencing is a must. Unique site conditions or design elements may require several mobilizations by the same sub. This needs to be factored in as well.
• The estimating system is still being refined – build an in-house table for lineal, area, volume, and unit costs for all major scopes of work. Full takeoffs from Bluebeam can then be used to generate highly accurate estimates prior to subcontractor input. Further, these take-offs would be used to ensure subs have everything in the plans covered.
• The firm’s ROMsare typically the most comprehensive when compared to competitors prior to precon – That’s the brand standard, and the Estimator is the one who produces it.
• The Project Manager relies on your estimates. Budget, schedule,and document management for all bids and drawings is the estimator’s responsibility prior to contract execution. On larger projects where the PM is involved during precon to assist in this process.

What Success Looks Like

• Within the first two weeks, you’ll know the active and imminent precon engagements, the current Excel template’s quirks, and the bid file structure. You’ll be in conversation with every architect and sub the firm is currently estimating with. Your manager has stopped wondering if anything’s dropping.
• By day 30, at least one ROM and one detailed estimate have moved through your hands at a high standard. Bid solicitation lists are organized by sub and by trade. Allowance schedules created per project rather than held in memory. Architects know who their estimating contact is and trust the response time.
• By day 90, you own the precon function end to end. Fixed-price estimates carry deliberate, project-sized buffers rather than blanket percentages. The handoff package to the PM at contract execution is a documented package, not just a verbal walk-through. The estimator will assist in creating the best practices for project hand-off

What You Need

• Estimating discipline that produces accurate numbers under pressure. Five percent is the accuracy floor on fixed-price work. The firm’s profit margin can’t absorb worse.
• “State the truth” communication discipline. You don’t shave the number to win the project. You don’t pad it to protect yourself. You bring the unwelcome news early, with what’s being done about it.
• Custom Residential Construction background that lets you spot scope gaps before the field finds them. Spec-heavy commercial (biotech, life sciences, research labs) translates if the residential vocabulary can be picked up. A sophisticated PM or site superintendent who’s been on the wrong side of enough scope gaps could be a good fit even if estimating experience is light.
• Critical-path scheduling fluency. Without a credible schedule, general conditions can’t be sized correctly.
• Build-the-system disposition. The firm is hiring partly to close gaps in the precon function: costing templates, bid leveling formats, handoff documents that don’t yet exist. Heads-down spreadsheet operators are the wrong fit. So are people who need a fully systematized environment to operate in.
• Thoughtful reflective ownership under pressure. When a number is wrong, the conversation is what to do about it and what to learn. Not whose fault it was.

What Helps

• Excel fluency at the in-house custom-template level
• Bluebeam takeoff and markup proficiency
• Advanced Plan Reading that allows you to understand what the architect actually intended, not just what the drawing says
• Ten to fifteen years in residential construction as a PM or site superintendent before moving into estimating
• Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, or comparable for critical-path scheduling

What Makes This Role Hard

• The bar isn’t lowered when things get busy.
• Leadership is direct because they are committed to quality. Supervisors will point out mistakes and sub par work whenever it occurs in a professional but direct manner. Read it as clarity and it’s one of the best things about working here.
• Mistakes are visible so there’s no room for mediocrity. There’s no department to absorb an error or obscure a slip.
• The firm is still building its processes. Some of what you walk into doesn’t have a written procedure yet; you’re expected to write it or help write it.

What Makes This Role Worth It

• Principals who are present. You can ask anything. Open door policy. In the field, working alongside field labor making sure things go right, without undermining the leadership of the site super.
• Your work is visible here. 30 to 40 people, principals in the weeds, no layers between you and the two people who built it.
• Base salary: $150,000 – $200,000 depending on experience
• PTO: 24 days from Day 1
• 401(k): 6% employer match
• Health: $405/month employer contribution toward individual coverage (CalChoice plan)
• Vision/Dental: Plans available; employee-paid
• Mileage: IRS standard rate reimbursement for work-related travel

Resort properties in Mexico and future property Tahoe available to employees for time off. Leadership encourages rest and restorative self-care.