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Contracts Manager — Data Center Construction

Reports to: VP of Construction (HQ)

Works daily with: Project Executive, Project Managers, In-House Legal, Finance/Accounting

Status: Full-time, exempt

Alternate titles: Contracts Administrator · Subcontracts Administrator · Contracts & Procurement Manager

Position Summary

The Contracts Manager owns the full lifecycle of subcontract agreements and purchase orders for a large-scale data center construction project. Working on-site alongside the project management team, this person converts approved scopes of work into executed contracts, manages the redline negotiation process within pre-defined authority limits, escalates non-standard terms to in-house legal, and ensures every executed agreement, change order, and PO is properly countersigned, filed, and handed off to Finance for budget tracking.

This is a control-function role. The Contracts Manager is the single point of accountability for making sure that what the project team bought is what the contract says, that no work begins without a signed agreement, and that the contract record and the budget always agree.

Key Responsibilities

Contract Setup & Scope Alignment

• Meet with Project Managers and the Project Executive to define and confirm the scope of work, schedule milestones, and commercial terms for each trade package before drafting.
• Convert bid documents, scope sheets, and buyout logs into complete contract exhibits — scope inclusions and exclusions, drawing and specification lists, schedule of values, milestone dates, insurance and bonding requirements, and safety and site-specific requirements.
• Identify scope gaps and overlaps between trade packages during contract preparation and drive them to resolution with the PM team before award.
• Maintain the contract log and buyout tracker: package status, award value, executed date, and outstanding items.
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• Drafting, Review & Issuance

• Draft, review, and issue all subcontract agreements, master service agreements, work authorizations, and purchase orders using company-standard templates.
• Verify each agreement against the approved budget line, awarded bid amount, and delegation of authority limits before issuance.
• Distribute contracts to subcontractors and vendors, track receipt, and drive execution against the schedule needs of the project
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• Redline Management

• Receive and review contractor redlines and comments against the pre-approved negotiable terms matrix.
• Accept or reject redlines independently where the requested change falls within the pre-determined negotiable set.
• Escalate any redline that falls outside the negotiable set to in-house legal, providing a clear summary of the request, the commercial impact, and the project's position.
• Track all rounds of negotiation between the subcontractor and legal — maintain version control, log open issues, drive turnaround times, and keep the PM team informed of any item holding up a start date
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  Execution, Filing & Handoff

• Upon subcontractor signature, route agreements to the Project Manager or Project Executive for countersignature per the authority matrix.
• File fully executed agreements, exhibits, and supporting documentation in the project record system in accordance with company document control standards.
• Transmit executed contract values, change orders, and PO commitments to Finance for entry into the project budget and commitment tracking.
• Confirm that contract values in the accounting system reconcile to the executed contract record; investigate and clear variances
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  Change Order Management

• Receive, review, and price change order requests; validate scope, backup, labor rates, markups, and schedule impact against the underlying contract terms.
• Prepare and issue subcontractor change orders and PO revisions; manage the same redline and execution process used for base contracts.
• Maintain the change order log — pending, approved, rejected, and disputed — and reconcile it against the project budget and contingency draws.
• Support the PM team in identifying, documenting, and pricing owner-directed changes and back-charges
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  Prequalification & Insurance Tracking

• Own the subcontractor and vendor prequalification process: issue and collect prequal packages, review financial capacity, bonding capacity, safety history (EMR, OSHA 300 logs, TRIR), licensing, and past project references, and maintain the approved bidder list with the PM team.
• Verify that every subcontractor and vendor carries the insurance required by their agreement before contract execution and before mobilization — general liability, auto, workers' compensation, umbrella/excess, professional, pollution, and builder's risk as applicable.
• Review certificates of insurance and endorsements for compliance with contract requirements, including limits, additional insured status, primary and non-contributory wording, waiver of subrogation, and notice of cancellation. Reject non-conforming certificates and drive them to correction.
• Maintain the compliance tracker for all active subcontractors — COIs, endorsements, payment and performance bonds, W-9s, licenses, and safety documentation — with expiration dates monitored and renewals collected before lapse.
• Enforce the no-coverage, no-work rule: flag any subcontractor with lapsed or deficient coverage to the Project Executive and Finance immediately and hold payment or site access until cured.
• Coordinate with HQ risk management and in-house legal on non-standard insurance requests, waivers, or coverage disputes
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  Compliance & Close-Out

• Manage lien waiver collection in coordination with Finance as a condition of payment.
• Track contract compliance issues — notice requirements, schedule and completion obligations, retainage — and support the PM team in issuing formal notices when needed.
• Manage contract close-out: final change orders, final lien waivers, warranties, as-builts, and release of retainage
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  Qualifications

  Required

• 5+ years of contracts administration, subcontract administration, or procurement experience with a general contractor, construction manager, developer, or owner's representative.
• Direct experience drafting and administering subcontract agreements and purchase orders on projects of $50M+ in construction value.
• Working knowledge of construction contract structures and terms — lump sum, GMP, unit price, and time and materials; indemnity, insurance, retainage, liquidated damages, flow-down, change order, and termination provisions.
• Demonstrated ability to run a redline negotiation process independently within defined authority limits and to package non-standard issues cleanly for legal review.
• Working command of the core construction document workflows — RFPs, RFIs, submittals, change orders, and contracts — and an understanding of how each one carries commercial and contractual risk.
• Hands-on proficiency in Procore, including the commitments, change management, and compliance modules; able to administer contracts, POs, and change orders directly in the system rather than working around it.
• Experience with an enterprise ERP or property/asset management platform — Yardi preferred — and the ability to keep commitments and contract values reconciled between the construction management system and the ERP.
• Experience managing subcontractor and vendor prequalification and insurance compliance, including reading certificates of insurance and endorsements against contract requirements.
• Strong document control discipline and comfort managing a high volume of concurrent packages against a construction schedule.
• Advanced Excel.
• Ability to work on-site full time for the duration of the project
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  Preferred

• Data center, mission critical, industrial, or heavy manufacturing project experience.
• Familiarity with long-lead equipment procurement (switchgear, generators, transformers, chillers, CRAH/CDU) and the commercial terms attached to it — escalation, cancellation, storage, and delivery guarantees.
• Experience administering AIA, ConsensusDocs, or owner-authored contract forms.
• Paralegal certification, a construction management or business degree, or CPCM/CFCM certification
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  What Success Looks Like

• No subcontractor mobilizes without a fully executed agreement.
• Contract turnaround from award to execution stays inside the target window; packages holding up the schedule are visible to the VP of Construction before they become critical.
• Executed contract values, change orders, and commitments in the accounting system reconcile to the contract record with no unexplained variance.
• Legal's time is spent only on genuinely non-standard issues.
• Insurance, bonds, and licensing are current for every active subcontractor at all times.