Preconstruction Specialist - ADUs

Benefits

• 401(k)
• Bonus based on performance
• Competitive salary
• Health insurance
• Paid time off

This is not a sales job and it is not an estimating job.

This is the seat in the middle of the process — the part where a client makes 100 hundred decisions, a third of them move the budget, and somebody has to catch every single one, get it priced, document it, and tell the client what it did to their number before the end of the week. Nothing gets lost. Nothing gets remembered wrong three months later when it shows up in a change order.

If you are already doing exactly this at a custom or semi-custom builder, this posting is for you. If you have not held this specific seat, please do not apply — this is not a role someone grows into, and we are not going to be the company that teaches it.

BuildX designs and builds custom and semi-custom accessory dwelling units. Our clients are homeowners — not developers, not institutions. They are spending their own money on what is often the second-largest purchase of their lives, and most of them are living on the property while we build.

We run preconstruction as a paid, contracted phase. Clients sign a Preconstruction Agreement and a budget range is already established before this role picks up the file. We are planning roughly 40 units next year. Today our project managers are carrying the preconstruction process on top of running construction, and it is not sustainable. We are hiring one person to own it.

You are the client's point person and the process owner from the signed Preconstruction Agreement to the signed construction contract — driving design, running selections, keeping the budget current as the client makes decisions, documenting everything, and delivering a complete, accurate contract package that the project manager has reviewed and approved.

Before you touch a project, three things are already done: the client has signed the Preconstruction Agreement, a preliminary budget range was set during pre-discovery, and site feasibility and jurisdictional questions have been handled. You are not starting from a blank page and you are not pricing the job from scratch.

What you inherit is a client with a budget range, a set of decisions to make, and a project that has to get to a signed construction contract without anything falling through the cracks.

• The client relationship through preconstruction. You are their primary point of contact from PCA signature to contract signature. Every question, every decision, every update comes through you. Part of the reason this role exists is to take that load off our project managers.
• Design management. Drive the design process with our designers and architects. Read and mark up plans, keep revision cycles moving on schedule, and make sure what gets drawn reflects what the client actually decided.
• Consultant coordination. Structural, energy, survey, and any other consultant on the project — scheduled, chased, and delivering on time. When something is sitting, you are the one who knows about it before anyone asks.
• Selections and specifications. Guide the client through every selection — cabinets, tile, fixtures, flooring, finishes, appliances. Coordinate directly with finish vendors and showrooms where needed. Produce a complete, unambiguous selection schedule and specification that leaves nothing open to interpretation at contract.
• Allowance reconciliation. The budget arrives with allowances. Your job is to turn those allowances into real, priced selections and reconcile the difference — line by line, documented, with the client informed every step.
• Budget maintenance and client budget reporting. You do not build the original budget. You keep it accurate as the project evolves, and you deliver a written weekly update to the client: here is where you started, here is what your selections and changes have done to that number, here is where you stand today. Every week, without being asked.
• Change capture and pricing. Every client change and custom feature request gets logged, scoped, priced in conjunction with the project manager, presented to…