Project Manager (High-End Residential Construction)

Hurst Construction, Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 77,000 - 86,000; Full time

Job summary

Hurst Construction is seeking a Project Manager who will own the build from start to finish on a small, craft-focused team. You will read drawings, drive on-site details, and manage schedule, budget, subs, and client relations.

We value hands-on leadership and a thoughtful approach to design and execution. You will report to the Production Manager and contribute to keeping a manageable workload with strong, well-coordinated projects.

Qualifications

• Read and interpret drawings and design intent to plan on-site work.
• Able to sequence work and coordinate subs to meet the schedule.
• Lead on-site teams with clear communication and judgment.
• Plan material flow and track progress against the schedule and budget.

Responsibilities

• Own the build end to end from handoff through closeout.
• Define details with designers and subs to ensure fabrication accuracy.
• Manage schedule, subcontractors, procurement, and material flow.
• Monitor budget performance against fixed scope and fees.
• Maintain client relationships through regular on-site communication.
• Collaborate with designers to realize the intended design on site.

Skills

Reading drawings

Construction sequencing

On-site leadership

Teamwork

Organization

Job description

Not a desk job.

Our Project Managers own the build. You read the design intent, drive the details on site, and run the schedule, the budget, and the client, with a strong team behind you.

Two to three projects. Not eight.

That is the whole job in one number. A project manager at a commercial GC is running five to eight jobs and knows none of them well. You will run two or three, and you will know every detail in all of them.

What Hurst is:

A craft-focused custom construction company. We build high-end residential work in the Kansas City and Lawrence areas, and we run our own cabinet shop, Blind Rabbet, in house. About fifteen people across field and shop.

We do not competitively bid.

• Nobody is value-engineering the millwork down to hit a number someone else set.
• The schedule is built to be met, not survived.
• Cabinetry and millwork problems get solved by people down the hall, not by a vendor three weeks out.

Give us a solid 40. Then go home.

At 50 or 60 hours a week there is no practice, no recital, no dinner. You know that already. You have probably missed a few.

We do not build our calendar that way. Forty hours, scheduled. Overtime beyond a few hours is uncommon, and we mean that in both directions. We are not asking you to donate your evenings, and we are not going to quietly let the job eat them.

Go home, rest, do what brings you joy, and come back ready to work. This is the part of the job we are least willing to compromise on.

What you’ll own:

• The build, end to end, from handoff through closeout.
• The details. Not just what is happening and when, but how. You are the one who sees the datum line nobody drew, and gets it to the subs before they need it. You know when something has to be framed out of the ordinary so the materials plane out at the end, and you tell the team early enough for it to matter. Knowing which of those calls are yours to make and which belong to the designer is the judgment we are hiring for.
• Schedule, subcontractors, procurement, material flow. Keeping the internal team moving with enough in front of them, and not burning hours.
• Budget performance against a fixed fee.
• The client relationship, in person and regularly.
• The design relationship. We work with designers and architects for a reason, and those relationships are as important to us as the client's. Your job is to bring the design to fruition, not to decide what it should have been. When something is not clear, you ask. Nobody here plows ahead and explains later.

You will report to our Production Manager day to day. We make decisions as a team and hold each other accountable to them. You will not be handed a mess and told to sort it out alone, and you will not be expected to have every answer yourself.

What we’re looking for:

Hands, sequence, and drawings. Real time on the tools, ideally in detail finish work. You understand construction sequencing well enough to bend it when a job requires it. You can read a set of drawings, understand the design intent behind them, ask the questions that actually matter, and turn that into a plan that moves the work forward.

• Leadership. You have made the hard calls and guided a team through them.
• Organization and foresight. You are thinking about next week while running this one.
• A team approach. You are not looking for an island to plant your flag on. The best answer in the room wins, no matter whose it is.
• A love of building. Tell us what you build, watch, read, or tinker with when nobody is paying you for it. Furniture in the garage, a house you are slowly gutting, building science videos at lunch, whatever it is. We are looking for people who are in this world because they love it, not because it is a job.

About the pay, plainly:

The salary is based on a scheduled 40-hour week and we take that seriously.

Other builders, especially commercial GC ’s in this metro might show you a bigger number. What they will not show you are the hours required. A project manager working 55-hour weeks is giving up about 780 hours a year compared to one at Hurst.

Run the numbers and the gap mostly disappears. A $100,000 salary spread across 55-hour weeks works out to about $35 an hour. This job, on a real 40, pays between $37 and $41 depending on experience.

So the question is not really which job pays more. It is what you want to do with four months of Saturdays. That's time you can’t get back.

What this isn’t:

• Not a clipboard role. You will be on site most days.
• Not a volume builder. We run a small number of projects and finish them well.
• Not an island. Nobody here is a solo act. If you need to be the one who saved the day, this is not the place.

How hiring works here:

Three steps, and we move quickly through them.

• A phone conversation. Your background, what you build when nobody is paying you, and what you are looking for.
• A set of drawings. We hand you a real set from a real Hurst project and ask what questions you would have before starting, and how you would approach it. Some of it in writing. This is the part of the process we weight most heavily.
• An interview, in person, with the people you would be working alongside.

Hurst Construction is an Equal Opportunity Employer.