Procurement & Estimating Manager
Duet Design + Duet Build | Denver, CO
Youโre the person who reads a set of plans, walks a job site, talks to a vendor about lead times on imported stone, and still closes out the day with every PO clean in JobTread. Youโre also the person who notices when a vendorโs invoice has a $100 split-ship fee that wasnโt in the original quote, and picks up the phone to make it go away. Thatโs a rare combination. If youโve spent years feeling like your role didnโt have a name, this one does.
Weโre hiring a Procurement & Estimating Manager to sit between Duet Design and Duet Build, our sister firms running high-end design and construction in Denver. Youโll own FF&E procurement on the design side, equipment and material procurement on the build side, and estimating support across both. Youโll work alongside the project managers running our active jobs and report to them on the day-to-day.
Why this role exists:
- Weโve been routing procurement through an outside purchasing firm and pushing estimating onto our project managers. Both are working. Neither is right long-term. Weโre moving estimating off our PMs so they lead projects without drowning in spreadsheets, and weโre bringing procurement in-house so it lives next to the people doing the work.
- Youโre walking into a real role with a real seat. Procurement coverage is being held by an outside partner so the work doesnโt slip while we find the right person. When you start, youโre inheriting a clean operational picture, a defined cadence, and a defined first 90 days. Youโre not picking up someone elseโs mess.
- This role didnโt exist in this shape before. We built it because we needed it.
How we run procurement here:
We donโt make it up as we go. Hereโs the system youโd be running.
- Bi-weekly AP release cycle. Every two weeks, three Studio Designer reports go out: Office Expenses, Open Orders with Vendor Balances Due, Items with Client Funds Applied but not Ordered. The principal releases. You place. The rhythm is the heartbeat of the role.
- A defined status workflow. Released to Order, Need Acknowledgement, In Production, In Transit, Received, Delivered. Plus issue states (Backorder, Need Final Measure, Ready for Pickup) and procurement states (Procurement Fee, Reselect, Cancelled). Every item lives somewhere in this flow. The flow is the truth.
- Weekly summary discipline. Every week you send a tight summary to the design team and the principal: Open Orders issues needing action, AP and invoice issues, past due invoices, upcoming invoices over $2K. Nothing buried. Nothing chased.
- Vendor negotiation as the work, not the favor. When a vendor underquotes yardage, misses a ship window, sneaks in a fee, or sits on an order acknowledgement, youโre the one calling them on it. You donโt wait to be told. You donโt let the cost land on us. Aggressive vendor cooperation is the standard, not the exception.
- Payment protocols. Wires over $5K route through the principal with verbal vendor verification (weโve been burned, we donโt take chances). Check requests route to ap@. Studio POs are created only after the principal releases. You donโt have to memorize this on day one. You do have to respect that this is a structured operation.
- Solutions, not problems. When something breaks, you walk in with the issue and at least one fix. Thatโs the bar.
A day in the life:
- 8:15am. Coffee with the design-side PM to review FF&E status on a Cherry Hills project. Three pieces from a workroom in High Point are running behind. Youโre already in touch with the vendor on backup options.
- 10am. Teams call with the build-side PM and a kitchen sub. Youโre pulling cabinetry specs into the estimate spreadsheet, flagging where the allowance is going to need to flex.
- 11:30am. Site visit with a superintendent. You see the rough plumbing locations, confirm the order against the spec, note one fixture is going to need a backplate that wasnโt in the original scope.
- 1pm. Lunch. Sometimes at your desk, sometimes with the team at the Bellaire office.
- 2pm. Studio Designer release. The bi-weekly AP report is in front of you. Youโre moving items from Released to Order, placing POs, uploading order acknowledgements to all items on each PO, and flagging two vendors whose acks are slow.
- 3:30pm. Estimate organization for a new Duet Build project. Youโre not pricing it. Youโre pulling everything into the format the PM needs to bid it cleanly, under their direction.
- 4:30pm. Vendor call. A workroom is trying to add a storage fee for a delayed install that wasnโt their fault but isnโt ours either. Youโre on the line negotiating it down to zero.
- 5pm. Out. We mean that.
How the split works in practice:
On paper, your time is 50/50 between Duet Design and Duet Build. In practice, it flexes with project volume.
Youโll have two direct managers: the project manager running the design side and the project manager running the build side. They own your day-to-day workload, your 1:1s, and your reviews. The firmsโ principals sit above the role for escalation and big-picture direction, with a standing weekly sync to allocate your time fairly between the two companies.
When two projects need you on the same day, the rule is simple: client deadlines win, then vendor commitments, then whoever asked first. If itโs still a coin flip, the principals call it together. You wonโt ever be the one stuck in the middle of an owner debate. We built this role to end well.
What youโll own:
- Procurement, design side. The full pipeline. Vendor communication, lead time tracking, order status against the workflow above, expediting, damages and replacements, the weekly summary email. Studio Designer entries for soft goods and FF&E line items. CFA and DFA tracking. Alternates research when items go discontinued. Sample ordering and tracking tied to active projects. Receiving warehouse coordination. AP coding on design orders against the bi-weekly cycle.
- Procurement, build side. Material and equipment orders against active projects. Receive and inventory as needed. Vendor lead time logic across plumbing, cabinetry, appliances, and finishes. Coordination with superintendents on what arrives, when, and where.
- Estimating support, build side. Preconstruction estimating support under the build-side PM. Youโre not pricing scope. Youโre organizing it. Pulling trade scopes into spreadsheets, flagging gaps, comparing sub bids, building the document the PM needs to bid the job cleanly. Change order documentation. Sub bill review and coding against estimates.
- Project coordination across both. Project logistics and timeline tracking. Maintaining accurate project documentation (specifications, vendor details, approvals). Quality checks on whatโs leaving the door. Shop drawing, CFA, and custom furniture documentation review with the design team. Inspection and approval workflow support. Weekly project regroup scheduling on assigned projects.
- Sub onboarding, build side. COIs, W-9s, sub agreements, work orders in JobTread. Submittal creation and tracking for architects, designers, homeowners.
- The system that lives on. The Studio Designer SOP is in active development on the design side. You inherit it, extend it, and own its day-to-day. The build-side procurement playbook is yours to build. We donโt want this knowledge in one personโs head ever again.
First 90 days:
- By day 30, youโve taken full handoff from our interim purchasing partner. You own every active FF&E procurement queue on the Design side, every active material and equipment order on the Build side, and youโve shadowed two estimates with the build-side PM. Every open PO is mapped. Every active vendor conversation is documented. Your first weekly summary email goes out the second Friday youโre here.
- By day 60, youโre running procurement independently on both sides. The bi-weekly AP cycle is yours. Youโve negotiated at least one vendor issue to a result that saved us money. Youโve supported one full estimate alongside the build-side PM and youโve started a vendor lead-time library that didnโt exist before.
- By day 90, youโve identified at least two process improvements weโve adopted. Procurement-to-PO turnaround is measurably faster than it was when you started. The first version of your build-side procurement playbook is in draft.
Evidence weโre looking for:
- Six or more years of procurement experience in design, construction, or a related field. Residential, commercial, hospitality, healthcare, retail, multifamily. Sector matters less than depth. We want someone who has run a real procurement function inside a firm that takes the work seriously. Exceptional candidates with five years and the right mix of background will be considered. A background in architecture, construction, engineering, or interior design is a strong signal regardless of which sector or which seat youโve sat in.
- You read floor plans without needing a translator. You donโt need AutoCAD chops. You do need to look at a drawing and understand the spaces, the elevations, the relationship between the millwork and the wall behind it.
- You negotiate vendors hard. Youโve sat across from a workroom, a furniture rep, or a stone yard and pushed back on a fee they tried to slip into an invoice, a yardage they underquoted, a ship date they let slip. You have a story about a specific time you saved your last firm money by refusing to eat a vendorโs mistake. This is not a nice-to-have. This is the work.
- Studio Designer experience, or fluency in another purchasing system you could translate over. Weโll teach the platform. We wonโt teach the judgment.
- Excel that goes beyond formulas. You build trackers, you protect cells, you know your way around a pivot table without Googling it.
- Working knowledge of JobTread, Asana, and Bluebeam. Or evidence youโve picked up software like these fast before.
- Comfort with estimating support, not lead estimating. Youโve sat next to a PM and helped them organize a bid. Youโve translated drawings into line items. You donโt pretend to price scope you donโt own.
- You bring solutions, not problems. When something is going sideways, you walk in with the issue and at least one fix.
What we pay, what you get:
Base salary of $95,000 to $110,000 depending on experience. Healthcare covered. Four-plus weeks of PTO we expect you to use. 401k with employer match. Design discounts on everything we carry. A real seat at the table on both companies. Three days in the Bellaire office, two days remote.
Who we are, honestly:
Our principals came up in big rooms. Large commercial firms, hospitality groups, national architecture and construction practices. Weโve spent careers around big-budget, multi-stakeholder, brutally complex projects. We chose residential because of the personal connection with homeowners and what it feels like to create the spaces people live in. Thatโs the work that lights us up.
Duet Design has been here since 2011. Duet Build is its sister firm. Duet Forma is our architecture practice. Together we cover the full path from architecture to interior to built. We do livable luxury for clients who care about the difference between done and well done.
Weโre a small team that doesnโt believe in hierarchy theater. The principals work next to the project managers, who work next to the procurement and design teams, who work next to the trades. Nobody here thinks theyโre above the work.
Weโre driven. We have strong opinions. We move fast. We also leave the office in time to be at our kidsโ soccer games and we donโt apologize for it. Youโll work hard here. You wonโt sacrifice your life for it.
We hire people who are great at what they do, love being at work, and want to be around other people who feel the same way. Thatโs the bar. Thatโs the room.
To apply:
Send your resume and answer these three questions in writing, two paragraphs each. Donโt send a cover letter. We donโt read them.
- Tell us about a vendor who tried to charge you a fee that wasnโt yours to pay. What was the fee, what was the conversation, and what was the outcome.
- Walk us through the most complicated procurement situation youโve handled. What broke. What you did. What youโd do differently.
- Tell us about a time you sat next to a project manager during an estimate and made the estimate better. Be specific about what you contributed.
We read every application. We respond to every application. We move fast when we like what we see.