Director of People

Mother; Dallas (TX); On-site; USD 130,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation support

Job summary

Mother Modern Plumbing in Dallas-Fort Worth is seeking an experienced HR leader to build the people function from a blank page as we grow from 38 people to a $22M company. This onsite role sits on the leadership team and will start with a recruiter reporting to you.

You will own recruiting end-to-end, onboarding, employee experience and recognition, HR records and compliance, employee relations, leadership development for the leadership team and field managers, and a weekly people scorecard with

Qualifications

• Must be an HR professional with frontline/workforce experience.
• Proven ability to build a people function in a fast-growing environment.
• Experience with onboarding, recruiting, and compliance.
• Willingness to relocate to DFW.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end recruiting and onboarding.
• Manage employee experience, recognition, and HR records.
• Oversee compliance policies and employment processes.
• Lead leadership development for the leadership team and field managers.
• Produce a weekly people scorecard with actionable recommendations.

Skills

People leadership

HR policy

Employee relations

Recruiting

Job description

Mother Modern Plumbing. Dallas-Fort Worth. About 38 people (10 global), 20 of them plumbers.

My wife Becca and I started Mother two years ago on a simple bet: build the best place in DFW for a plumber to work, and you end up with the best plumbing company in DFW. So far the bet is paying off. We were voted the best plumbing company in DFW. Our competitors tell their own people we’re the best place to work (we hear about it). A plumbing YouTuber with a big audience just made a video about what our plumbers make.

Here’s how we do it. Half of company profit goes to the team. Not a bonus pool, not a number we decide on in December. Half, split across everyone, paid twice a year, with a piece of it going into retirement for every employee. Almost nobody in our industry does this, and it’s the clearest statement we can make about who the company is built for. Plumbers earn above market. We run incentive trips. We’ve acquired a competitor, we win sewer jobs at a premium because our people are that good, and our 2027 plan nearly doubles the team.

We also have all the problems of a company that is growing fast. Our recruiting process is not a process. It is feast or famine. Our apprentice program isn’t where it needs to be. Onboarding works, yet it can be sooo much better. Leadership development is inconsistent. That’s why this role exists.

I tend to overly focus on the numbers. I’m hiring the person who brings it back to people, and who will tell me when I’m wrong. You report directly to me and you sit on the leadership team. You start with a recruiter reporting to you from day one, and you’ll likely build a team over time (not immediately).

Here’s the part I’d want to hear if I were you. You get to build this. There’s no legacy HR department to untangle and no program you have to defend because it was somebody’s baby. You get a company that already treats its people unusually well, a leadership team that wants this function to exist, a recruiter, a budget, and a blank page. The environment you think a best-in-class company should give its people? You get to build it, and then you get to work in it.

And this isn’t a support function here. People are the differentiator in this business, which means the person who builds the people function holds the levers. Every plumber you find, every hire who makes it past day 90, every manager who gets better because of you shows up in the profit we all share. You get to make a real difference in people’s lives and build a real future for yourself in the same motion.

Your mission for the next 12 months: build the people function that lets Mother grow from 38 people to the team a $22M company needs, without losing what made it worth joining.

What the first year looks like:

• Recruiting owns the first 90 days. Every open seat gets a scorecard, a sourcing plan, and a live pipeline. Plumbers, CSRs, apprentices, a few leadership seats. We have roughly a dozen seats open today. By month 12, headcount is on plan with a bench, not a scramble.
• Onboarding is yours. We have a program that works, and it can work better. You own it, you improve it, and you’re the point of contact for every new hire through their first 90 days.
• Then culture. Not a program imported from your last company. In the first 90 days you listen: a structured 1:1 with every person in the building and on the trucks. At day 90 you tell me what you found. The program starts after that, and it’s better for having waited.
• Get our house in order: signed agreements for everyone, the handbook ratified, the compliance list closed, the apprentice program owned (owned, not taught).

You own:

recruiting end to end, onboarding, employee experience and recognition, HR records and compliance, employee relations, leadership development for the leadership team and field managers, and a weekly people scorecard where every problem arrives with a recommendation attached.

You don’t own: payroll processing, technical training content, your managers’ people problems, dispatch, or party planning. Protecting that scope is my job, not yours.

Compensation

$130K to $165K base. The band is wide on purpose. The deciding variable isn’t seniority, it’s whether you’ve built this before. Plus variable. Plus a share of the 50% of company profit that goes to the team, benefits, and relocation support if you’re moving here. Onsite at our DFW headquarters. Not remote, not hybrid.

Company description

Mother Modern Plumbing. Dallas-Fort Worth. About 38 people (10 global), 20 of them plumbers.

My wife Becca and I started Mother two years ago on a simple bet: build the best place in DFW for a plumber to work, and you end up with the best plumbing company in DFW. So far the bet is paying off. We were voted the best plumbing company in DFW. Our competitors tell their own people we’re the best place to work (we hear about it). A plumbing YouTuber with a big audience just made a video about what our plumbers make.

Here’s how we do it. Half of company profit goes to the team. Not a bonus pool, not a number we decide on in December. Half, split across everyone, paid twice a year, with a piece of it going into retirement for every employee. Almost nobody in our industry does this, and it’s the clearest statement we can make about who the company is built for. Plumbers earn above market. We run incentive trips. We’ve acquired a competitor, we win sewer jobs at a premium because our people are that good, and our 2027 plan nearly doubles the team.

We also have all the problems of a company that is growing fast. Our recruiting process is not a process. It is feast or famine. Our apprentice program isn’t where it needs to be. Onboarding works, yet it can be sooo much better. Leadership development is inconsistent. That’s why this role exists.

Role description

I tend to overly focus on the numbers. I’m hiring the person who brings it back to people, and who will tell me when I’m wrong. You report directly to me and you sit on the leadership team. You start with a recruiter reporting to you from day one, and you’ll likely build a team over time (not immediately).

Here’s the part I’d want to hear if I were you. You get to build this. There’s no legacy HR department to untangle and no program you have to defend because it was somebody’s baby. You get a company that already treats its people unusually well, a leadership team that wants this function to exist, a recruiter, a budget, and a blank page. The environment you think a best-in-class company should give its people? You get to build it, and then you get to work in it.

And this isn’t a support function here. People are the differentiator in this business, which means the person who builds the people function holds the levers. Every plumber you find, every hire who makes it past day 90, every manager who gets better because of you shows up in the profit we all share.

Your mission for the next 12 months: build the people function that lets Mother grow from 38 people to the team a $22M company needs, without losing what made it worth joining.

What the first year looks like:

• Recruiting owns the first 90 days. Every open seat gets a scorecard, a sourcing plan, and a live pipeline. Plumbers, CSRs, apprentices, a few leadership seats. We have roughly a dozen seats open today. By month 12, headcount is on plan with a bench, not a scramble.
• Onboarding is yours. We have a program that works, and it can work better. You own it, you improve it, and you’re the point of contact for every new hire through their first 90 days.
• Then culture. Not a program imported from your last company. In the first 90 days you listen: a structured 1:1 with every person in the building and on the trucks. At day 90 you tell me what you found. The program starts after that, and it’s better for having waited.
• Get our house in order: signed agreements for everyone, the handbook ratified, the compliance list closed, the apprentice program owned (owned, not taught).

You own:

recruiting end to end, onboarding, employee experience and recognition, HR records and compliance, employee relations, leadership development for the leadership team and field managers, and a weekly people scorecard where every problem arrives with a recommendation attached.

You don’t own: payroll processing, technical training content, your managers’ people problems, dispatch, or party planning. Protecting that scope is my job, not yours.

Compensation

$130K to $165K base. The band is wide on purpose. The deciding variable isn’t seniority, it’s whether you’ve built this before. Plus variable. Plus a share of the 50% of company profit that goes to the team, benefits, and relocation support if you’re moving here. Onsite at our DFW headquarters. Not remote, not hybrid.

Qualifications

Required

• A real people or HR professional. Not a career changer. The first 90 days include employment agreements, commission plans, and wage and hour.
• You’ve done this with a deskless, frontline workforce: hourly or commission people who work shifts, routes, or trucks.
• The slope. You carried a people function through real growth instead of inheriting one that already ran. We’ll ask your headcount and budget at the start and end of your last role.
• You’ve personally built a pipeline for hard-to-fill frontline roles in a tight market and can show the before and after numbers. This is our sharpest pain.
• Onsite in DFW. Relocation welcome.

Nice to have

• Home services, construction, field services, multi-unit restaurant or retail, logistics, hospitality, or manufacturing.
• Employment law depth, especially FLSA and wage and hour.
• Multi-site experience.
• Topgrading or the Who hiring method.

We don’t screen on home service experience. The best people leaders we studied while designing this role came from car rental, hospitality, and construction tech. Deskless frontline is the transferable muscle. Industry isn’t.

Who does well here

Someone with discretion from day one. Steady when the ground moves. Credible with plumbers, not just with the leadership team. Willing to tell the owner a hard truth. Energized by a blank page. Humble (I only win when the team wins). Notices the small change in someone that nobody else catches. Coach, not cop. Knows the spouse’s name before the birthday reminder does. Will chase an I-9 in the morning and ride along in a truck after lunch.