Project Controls Lead

Location:

Birmingham, AL

Reports to:

Director of Project Management

Employment Type:

Full-time

Compensation:
Competitive salary + performance-based bonus + benefits

Creature is a vertically integrated Design–Manufacture–Construct (DMC) company headquartered in Birmingham, AL. We replace the century-old, siloed model of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry with one disciplined system — design, manufacturing, and field execution operating as a single team, not a chain of handoffs. We self-perform our core trades alongside subcontracted scope to deliver medical and commercial facilities faster, safer, and to a higher standard than a traditional general contractor.

That system only works if the cycle that turns field progress into cash, accurate numbers, and closed jobs runs with the same discipline as the work itself.

Own the project controls cycle — billing, data, client reporting, and closeout — that runs through both Project Management and Accounting and has historically been owned by neither. Today every project manager runs these systems differently, and none of them has a date the company holds. The Project Controls Lead replaces that with one calendar, one standard, and one person accountable for the dates.

Project Management owns the number, the forecast, and the client relationship. Construction Operations owns what the field produces. This seat owns the cycle that turns both into cash, an accurate month, and a closed job. It is a system-owner role, not administrative support: roughly half the work is performed directly, and the other half is standardized, trained, and audited so that every PM executes it the same way every time.

Ensure every Creature project bills on time, closes each month on accurate numbers, delivers the same client experience regardless of PM, and closes out cleanly — through a standard that is documented, repeatable, and built to outlast this seat.

Own the monthly project controls calendar — every date backward-scheduled from each owner’s contractual deadline and published to Project Management and Accounting. Own on‑time submission of every owner pay application, assembled and reconciled by this seat with the PM approving the number rather than building the package. Own subcontractor billing compliance: pay apps verified against the schedule of values and commitment, lien waivers complete and accurate before payment releases, and discrepancies resolved before they reach a PM’s desk.

A late pay app is a cash decision the company never consciously made.

Drive cost capture ahead of the accounting cutoff — pursuing unbilled subcontractors before month‑end, not after — so revenue and margin are right in the month the company reviews them and close is never held hostage to missing invoices. Protect the integrity of the data Creature decides on: scorecard inputs monitored daily rather than discovered missing on Monday morning, and the monthly review pack delivered on a fixed lead time so PMs arrive to interpret their numbers, not assemble them.

Own the standard for everything the client receives — one weekly report format, one cadence, one submission discipline — produced or quality‑checked by this seat, with the PM supplying judgment and narrative. Own the change order pipeline from owner approval to billing, with every approved change tracked, aged, and pulled into the next cycle so approved work never sits as unbilled revenue.

A client moving from one Creature project to the next should not be able to tell the project manager changed.