Preconstruction Manager

Location:

Dallas–Fort Worth, TX
· Type:
Full-time, in-office with occasional site and client visits

We're working with a heavy civil and heavy highway contractor building in the Dallas–Fort Worth market — earthwork, roadway and paving, structures and bridges, drainage, utilities, and the underground work that has to go in before any of it. Preconstruction is where these jobs are won or lost, and this role owns that phase end to end.

You'll be the person who takes a set of plans, a spec book, and a rough scope and turns it into a number we can stand behind — then carries that number through design, bid, and award until it lands in the hands of the operations team in a form they can actually build from.

This is a front-end seat, not a support seat. You'll work directly with owners, engineers, and architects during design, sit across the table from our estimating and operations leads, and have real influence over what we pursue and what we walk away from.

Conceptual budgets
. Early-stage pricing off limited information — order-of-magnitude numbers for owners and internal go/no-go decisions, built from historical production rates, current material and subcontractor pricing, and a clear read on what's still unknown. Your budgets need to hold up when the project becomes real.

Design-phase estimates. Progressive estimates as drawings mature — schematic, design development, and construction documents. You'll flag cost drift early, tell the design team where the money is going, and give them options rather than surprises at 90% CDs.

Quantity alignment. Reconciling takeoffs across disciplines so the quantities in our estimate match what the design actually shows — earthwork, paving, structural concrete, reinforcing, drainage, and utility runs. Catching the discrepancy between drawings, spec, and reality before it becomes a change order is most of the job.

Bid leveling. Running and reviewing the bid process — scoping trades, chasing coverage, normalizing subs' proposals so an apples-to-apples comparison is possible, and identifying the gap between the low number and the right number. You know when a bid is missing scope, and you know how to document that.

Handoff packages. Assembling a clean, complete transfer to operations at award — estimate basis and assumptions, quantity backups, scope narratives, subcontractor and supplier commitments, schedule constraints, identified risks, and open items. The ops team should be able to start a buyout and a schedule without chasing anyone for context.

Risk and opportunity. Maintaining a live risk register through preconstruction, pricing the unknowns, and surfacing alternates, value-engineering options, and means-and-methods opportunities that protect margin.

• Lead preconstruction on pursuits from RFP through award, coordinating estimating, scheduling, and operations input
• Perform and review quantity takeoffs; build and maintain estimate basis documents
• Solicit, evaluate, and level subcontractor and supplier pricing; manage the bid process for assigned packages
• Attend design and owner meetings as the cost voice in the room; prepare and present estimate reviews
• Develop conceptual and progressive estimates for CM-at-risk, design-build, and hard-bid delivery
• Build and own the preconstruction schedule input — phasing, milestones, and long-lead items
• Write scope narratives, basis-of-estimate documents, and handoff packages
• Support business development with budgets for pursuits and proposals
• Maintain unit cost and production rate history for the region; keep our estimating data current
• Mentor junior estimators as the team grows

• 7+ years in heavy civil or heavy highway construction, with at least 4…