Field Operations Manager
(a.k.a. The Person Who Finally Gets Randy Off The Job Site)
Cross Creek Landscape - Coeur dโAlene, Idaho
Full-time | $90K base + bonus (total earning potential $110K+) | Relocation help for the right person | Company truck | One (1) free Coeur dโAlene sunset upon arrival.
Read This Part First (Donโt Skim):
We are not looking for a manager. We are looking for a field general. An A-player. The kind of person who shows up on day one, looks around, and quietly thinks โoh, I know exactly whatโs wrong here โ and exactly how to fix it.โ
Cross Creek builds luxury landscapes in North Idaho โ fire features, hardscape, water features, outdoor kitchens, the works. The kind of backyards people post on Instagram and their friends accuse them of buying off Pinterest. Our crews are good. Our standards are high. And the owner (Randy) is currently the bottleneck on every job site. He knows it. Thatโs why this listing exists.
We need someone who can walk onto our sites and run them better than he can. Someone who has done this before, at a real company, and is ready to do it again โ this time at a place where the owner actually listens, the team actually loves each other, and the work actually matters.
If you are looking for a comfortable seat in a beige office with a foosball table you never use, this isnโt it. If you are looking for a company you can shape, a team you can lead, and an owner who genuinely wants you to push back when heโs wrong โ keep reading. Weโll wait.
โIron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.โ โ Proverbs 27:17 (KJV)
What Youโd Own: (And Itโs A Lot):
Everything that happens between the design being signed and the client shaking your hand at the final walkthrough. Which is to say: most of the chaos. Specifically:
- Production schedule โ whoโs on what job, when, with what equipment, and which sub is allegedly showing up Tuesday but probably wonโt.
- Quality control โ daily site visits across active jobs, catching things before clients catch them (and they will catch them).
- Foreman leadership โ directly developing Branden, John, and the leads coming up behind them. These are good men. Treat them like it.
- Client-facing field communication โ pre-construction kickoffs, mid-build walkthroughs, final handoffs, the occasional โwhy is there a trench in my lawnโ phone call.
- Subcontractor coordination โ concrete, masonry, irrigation, electrical, fence. Herding cats, but the cats drive F-350s.
- Equipment and logistics โ making sure nothing on a job site is waiting on something the field team should have already handled. Nothing kills a margin like four guys standing around looking at their phones.
Within 90 days, when something goes sideways on a job, the foremen should be calling you, not Randy. Thatโs the goal. Randy would like to go to his daughterโs soccer games without his phone buzzing every six minutes.
What Weโre Looking For: Non-negotiable (we mean it):
- 8+ years running field operations at a design/build landscape company, custom home builder, or comparable construction operation. Not 8 years of โbeing in the industry.โ Eight years of actually running it.
- Youโve personally overseen at least $1M+ in annual construction volume โ ideally more. You know what those numbers feel like when theyโre going right and when theyโre going sideways.
- Youโve managed multiple crews and multiple subs simultaneously, on multiple active job sites, without losing your mind or your weekend.
- You can read a landscape plan, walk a site, and immediately see the three things that are going to cause problems in two weeks.
- Youโve held people accountable without breaking them. Thereโs a difference. We can tell.
- You understand that on-time and on-budget mean nothing if the craft isnโt there.
What separates a candidate from a hire:
- Youโve built or improved a production system somewhere โ and you can describe what changed and why, without using the phrase โsynergistic alignmentโ.
- You actually like developing people, not just managing them. The crews youโve led donโt just respect you โ theyโd follow you to your next job if you let them.
- Youโre the kind of person who, when the owner asks โwhat would you do?โ, has an answer. A real one. Not โwell, it dependsโ.
- Youโve worked at a place where the standards slipped and you didnโt let yourself slip with them.
What we donโt care about:
- Degrees. Donโt have one? Fine. Have three? Also fine. Have a horticulture certificate from a community college in 1997? Honestly thatโs kind of cool.
- Whether youโve done luxury work specifically โ if youโve run high-end custom home builds, fine-finish carpentry crews, or commercial sitework with tight tolerances, your skills translate.
- Where you live now. Coeur dโAlene is beautiful, the cost of living wonโt make your spouse cry, and weโre paying to help the right person move.
- Whether youโre an extrovert or not. Some of the best field generals are quiet people who happen to know exactly what theyโre doing.
How Youโd Get Paid (Real Numbers):
Base: $90,000/year, paid bi-weekly. Direct deposit, like a normal company.
Bonus, structured so you actually see the money:
- $500 for every completed job that hits on-time, on-budget, AND passes the quality gate โ paid the next payroll. No โwell, weโll figure it out at year-endโ nonsense.
- Annual true-up based on your qualifying-job rate: $5K at 85%, $8K at 90%, $12K at 95%+. The better you do, the better you do.
- Total earning potential: $110K+ if you run things tight. Uncapped on the top end if you crush it. We are not in the business of clipping the wings of the people who make us money.
The quality gate exists on purpose. We will not pay you to hit a schedule by cutting corners. The work has to be right. If youโre the kind of person who quietly fixes a crooked joint nobody else would have noticed โ youโre going to like it here.
Also Included: company truck (not a beater), fuel card, phone, PTO (2 weeks year one, 3 weeks year two+), paid holidays, paid continuing education (ICPI, NCMA, OSHA 30, whatever you need), relocation help up to $8K for the right out-of-area candidate.
About Cross Creek (The Honest Version)
Weโre a team of around ten. We build beautiful landscapes for clients who care about craft (and a few who care about Instagram, but we love them anyway). We treat each other well. We pray before some meetings. We laugh at most of them. Weโre a Christian-owned company, and we operate this business as a ministry โ meaning, the people we hire matter as much to us as the work we produce.
You do not have to share Randyโs faith to work here. Plenty of people on the team donโt. What you do have to do is treat every person on this team with dignity, hold people to high standards without humiliating them, and be honest when itโs costly. If youโre the type who yells at crews or talks down to anyone you outrank โ we are not the place for you. Move along.
โWhatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.โ โ Ecclesiastes 9:10 (KJV)
What This Job Will Probably Cost You:
Some early mornings. Some hard conversations with people whoโve been here longer than you. The discomfort of taking over an operation thatโs been run a certain way for a while. The first six months of figuring out how Randy actually wants things done versus what he says he wants done (these are not always the same; weโre working on it).
If that sounds like a deal-breaker, this isnโt the right seat. If it sounds like Tuesday, we should talk.
How to Apply:
Send us:
- A resume or work history (formal or informal โ we care about what youโve actually run, not how pretty the document is. If itโs in Comic Sans weโll judge you slightly, but only slightly.)
- A short note โ three or four paragraphs, not a novel โ answering: Whatโs the hardest field operation youโve ever turned around, and what did you actually change to do it?
- Two references we can call. One should be a foreman or crew member who worked under you (we want to hear from someone you led, not just someone you reported to). The other can be whoever you want โ your pastor, your last boss, the guy who sold you your truck. Up to you.
We will read every application. We will respond to every person who applies (it might take a week, but weโll do it). If you make it past the first round, expect a phone call from Randy, a working site visit where youโll actually walk a job with us, and a conversation with the foremen youโd be leading. We want this to be the right fit โ for you and for us. A bad hire here costs both of us a year of our lives.
Looking forward to meeting you. Bring boots.
โ Randy & the Cross Creek team