Project Manager, Preconstruction OS

Clayco; Phoenix (AZ); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus

Comprehensive benefits package

Generous PTO and holidays

Job summary

Clayco seeks an experienced delivery-governance leader to own the end-to-end vendor engagement for Precon OS. You will drive plan, cadence, and validation across multiple work packages, safeguard scope, and push a production-ready MVP to Clayco with minimal external dependency.

You will govern code validation, baselining, and acceptance gates, coordinating with preconstruction, data/BI, and platform teams while ensuring budget control and timely cutovers.

Qualifications

• 7+ years managing software delivery, incl. 3+ years with an external vendor.
• Proven record governing enterprise apps through discovery, build, UAT and cutover (commercial oversight included).
• Comfortable with modern engineering stacks; ability to critique vendor PRs, test reports and architecture decisions without coding.
• Strong requirements discipline; translate acceptance criteria into verifiable evidence.
• Experience running decision logs and guiding unresolved decisions to closure with senior stakeholders.
• Clear, direct communicator capable of briefing executives and estimators alike.
• Background in construction/preconstruction estimating or cost data management.
• Exposure to .NET, SQL Server, SignalR, or data-source migrations in production.
• Familiarity with RBAC/identity (Okta/Auth0/Azure AD), API productization (OpenAPI) and ERP/estimating integrations.
• PMP/PgMP/SAFe or equivalent certification; experience with Asana or similar tools.
• Experience taking over or rescuing a partially built internal application.

Responsibilities

• Run vendor engagement: plan cadence, RAID log and status reporting; ensure Definition of Done.
• Govern the validation phase (WP-0) and re-baseline scope, price and schedule.
• Manage scope and sequencing; enforce boundary and real dependencies.
• Close open decisions with recommended deadlines and owners.
• Own acceptance and quality gates with traceability, parity and redaction checks.
• Orchestrate UAT, beta and cutover, triage defects and plan training.
• Ensure staging/production environments, vendor repository, Okta/Azure access.
• Coordinate across preconstruction leadership, Platform/Security, Data/BI, and other vendors.
• Manage budget and change control; approve invoices only against deliverables.
• Secure handover: architecture, API, runbooks and deploy/runbook docs.

Skills

Vendor management

Program management

Requirements tracing

Executive communication

Risk management

UAT & cutover

Decision logs

Education

PMP, PgMP, SAFe or equivalent certification

Tools

Python/FastAPI

React/TypeScript

PostgreSQL

Azure

CI/CD

OpenAPI

Job description

About Us

Clayco is a full-service, turnkey real estate development, master planning, architecture, engineering, and construction firm that safely delivers clients across North America the highest quality solutions on time, on budget, and above and beyond expectations. With $8.1 billion in revenue for 2025, Clayco specializes in the "art and science of building," providing fast track, efficient solutions for mission critical, industrial, life sciences, power & energy, aviation, commercial, institutional, residential and sports & entertainment related building projects.

The Role We Want You For

Precon OS is Clayco’s in-house preconstruction platform (Estimation, GC/GR, Data Manager, Program Management) and the future estimate source for E2B Hub. The foundation is sound, but an estimator cannot yet complete and issue an estimate end-to-end in the platform. Clayco is bringing in an external vendor to close that gap. This role owns the outcome: it directs vendor delivery, protects scope, resolves open decisions, and gets Precon OS to a production-ready MVP that Clayco can run without the vendor.

This is a delivery-governance role, not a coordination role. The work includes a mandatory validation phase, eleven work packages of uneven size and risk, a long list of unresolved Clayco decisions, and two technology stacks.

The Specifics of the Role

• Run the vendor engagement - Own the plan, cadence, RAID log and status reporting across all work packages. Hold the vendor to the Definition of Done: delivery is traceable requirements, passing tests and approved evidence, not hours consumed or sprints completed.
• Govern the validation phase (WP-0) - Drive the vendor’s codebase and functional validation, then lead the re-baseline of scope, price and schedule against what is actually found. Hold the line against optimistic assumptions about how complete the Estimation module is.
• Manage scope and sequencing - Enforce the in-scope / out-of-scope boundary and the real dependencies: RBAC unblocks UAT, GC/GR authorization precedes the rate-engine cutover, lineage work follows the parity proof, and the E2B Hub re-platform follows the API contract.
• Close open decisions - Maintain the decision register (Program Management/Estimation coupling, authorization model, deploy access, stable role identity, E2B Hub override continuity and cutover approach, scale targets, audit retention). Put each in front of the right Clayco owner with a recommendation and a deadline.
• Own acceptance and quality gates - Run the traceability matrix and merge/acceptance gates: GC/GR byte-identical parity, arithmetic that reconciles to the cent, permission matrix with API-level redaction checks, concurrency, migrations, manual browser verification, and E2B Hub no-regression and read-only enforcement.
• Orchestrate UAT, beta and cutover - Schedule estimator, cost administrator and project director time; triage defects against agreed severity thresholds; plan training and cutover. Lead the final BO-1 acceptance run on a live project with the chief estimator.
• Clear Clayco-side dependencies - Get staging and production environments stood up, vendor repository, Okta and Azure access provisioned, and deploy-path questions settled, so the vendor is never blocked on Clayco.
• Coordinate across teams and stakeholders - Keep preconstruction leadership, Platform/Security, Data/BI, the E2B Hub team and any other module vendors aligned. Report clearly and early to executive sponsors on risk, scope change and budget.
• Manage budget and commercials - Track spend against the separately priced packages (WP-0, WP-10), process change requests, and approve invoices against accepted deliverables only.
• Secure the handover - Make sure architecture, API, runbook and administrator documentation are delivered and that Clayco engineers can deploy, diagnose and onboard unassisted (BO-8).

What Success Looks Like

• A nominated estimator produces a complete GMP-level estimate for a real project in Precon OS and issues a client-ready deliverable with no external spreadsheet step.
• Other Clayco applications consume estimate, catalog, GC/GR and program data through a documented, versioned API; E2B Hub reads from Precon OS with no regression and no write path.
• A new GC/GR rate year is published as configuration, with no migration or deploy, and legacy plan totals match byte-for-byte.
• UAT is unblocked, scope held, and Clayco runs the platform without vendor involvement.

Requirements

• 7+ years managing software delivery, including 3+ years running large, multi-workstream programs with an external development vendor.
• Proven record governing complex enterprise applications through discovery, build, UAT and cutover, including commercial oversight (SOW, change control, milestone acceptance).
• Comfortable with a modern engineering stack at the level needed to challenge a vendor: Python/FastAPI, React/TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Azure, CI/CD and database migrations. You do not need to write code, but you must read a pull request summary, a test report and an architecture decision with a critical eye.
• Strong requirements and traceability discipline; able to turn acceptance criteria into evidence and say no to “done” when it is not.
• Experience running decision logs and driving unresolved decisions to closure with senior stakeholders.
• Clear, direct communicator who can brief executives and estimators equally well.
• Background in construction, preconstruction estimating, cost data management or other financially rigorous domains (cost-to-the-cent reconciliation, markup and fee logic).
• Exposure to .NET, SQL Server and SignalR applications, or to data-source migrations in production systems with a rollback plan.
• Familiarity with RBAC and identity (Okta, Auth0, Azure AD), API productization (OpenAPI) and ERP or estimating integrations (e.g., Procore, JDE).
• PMP, PgMP, SAFe or equivalent certification; experience in Asana or similar work-management tools.
• Experience taking over or rescuing a partially built internal application.

Some Things You Should Know

• Our clients and projects are nationwide – Travel will be required.
• No other builder can offer the collaborative design-build approach that Clayco does.
• We work on creative, complex, award-winning, high‑profile jobs.
• The pace is fast!

Why Clayco?

• 2025 Best Places to Work – St. Louis Business Journal, Los Angeles Business Journal, and Phoenix Business Journal.
• 2025 ENR Top 400 – Top Data Center Contractor (Top 3).
• 2025 ENR Top 100 Design‑Build Firms – Design‑Build Contractor (Top 5).
• 2025 ENR Top 100 Green Contractors – Green Contractor (Top 3).

Benefits

• Discretionary Annual Bonus: Subject to company and individual performance.
• Comprehensive Benefits Package Including: Medical, dental and vision plans, 401k, generous PTO and paid company holidays, employee assistance program, flexible spending accounts, life insurance, disability coverage, learning & development programs and more!

Compensation

• The salary range for this position considers a wide range of factors in making compensation decisions including but not limited to: Education, qualifications, skills, training, experience, certifications, internal equity, and location. Compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case.