What are the responsibilities and job description for the Architectural Designer position at The Portlock Company?
The Portlock Company is a growing local homebuilder focused on creating high-quality homes and communities throughout the Portland metro area. We believe great residential product starts with the property itself. Rather than relying on the same plans from project to project, we continually create and refine homes to fit the site, the neighborhood and the way people actually live.
We're looking for a team player who wants to have a direct hand in creating the homes and communities we build.
This isn't a position where you'll spend your day working on one small piece of a project or simply drafting someone else's design. You'll work directly with company leadership from the earliest stages of a project - looking at a piece of property, figuring out what we should build there, designing the homes, producing the plans, coordinating consultants and helping move the project through permitting and into construction.
A big part of our competitive advantage is our ability to continually create new residential product and adapt it to each project. Bringing this role in-house will allow us to move faster, improve coordination and continue developing homes that stand apart in the market.
This is a hands-on design and drafting position. You'll personally design, draft and revise residential plans and construction documents while also taking on broader responsibility for consultant coordination, permitting, land planning and development.
Architectural licensure is not required. We're more interested in someone who is a strong residential designer, technically capable, understands how homes are actually built and enjoys solving problems.
- Personally design and draft residential plans using AutoCAD, Revit or similar professional design software.
- Develop new home designs from initial concept through permit and construction documents.
- Produce complete drawing sets including floor plans, roof plans, exterior elevations, sections and architectural details.
- Modify existing plans to fit individual lots, communities, zoning requirements and project conditions.
- Prepare and revise architectural site plans and coordinate them with surveys, civil engineering and grading plans.
- Make plan revisions resulting from permit comments, engineering coordination, field conditions and company design changes.
- Maintain current master plans and the company's residential plan library.
- Review plans for accuracy, constructability and conflicts before permit submission and construction.
- Continually improve plans based on construction experience, buyer feedback, market trends and building efficiency.
- Develop attractive, market-appropriate exterior elevations and help establish the architectural character of each project.
- Work with outside architects or design professionals when specialized exterior design expertise is beneficial.
- Translate outside design concepts into coordinated, buildable construction documents.
- Continue developing new elevations and architectural styles to keep our product fresh and differentiated.
- Coordinate the architectural and technical work required to obtain building permits.
- Work directly with structural and civil engineers, surveyors, truss and floor engineers, energy consultants, geotechnical engineers and other project consultants.
- Coordinate site plans and consultant drawings with the architectural plans.
- Review consultant documents for conflicts, accuracy and constructability.
- Manage jurisdictional plan-review comments, revisions and resubmittals.
- Track design and permitting progress and proactively address issues that could delay construction.
- Assist in evaluating potential land acquisitions and development opportunities.
- Prepare conceptual site and lot layouts to evaluate development yield and product fit.
- Evaluate how zoning, setbacks, access, topography, utilities and other constraints affect a potential project.
- Test different development scenarios and help determine which home designs best fit each property.
- Work with company leadership, civil engineers, surveyors and land-use consultants during feasibility, entitlement and engineering.
- Participate in pre-application meetings and jurisdictional coordination as appropriate.
- Strong residential design and drafting experience.
- Proficiency with AutoCAD and/or Revit.
- Experience personally producing residential construction documents.
- Strong understanding of residential construction and constructability.
- Working knowledge of residential building codes and zoning requirements.
- Ability to read and understand surveys, civil plans, grading plans and engineering documents.
- Experience coordinating consultants and working through residential permitting.
- Strong organizational, communication and project-management skills.
- Ability to balance design, cost, constructability and schedule.
- Experience with land planning, subdivisions, middle housing, entitlements or land-use approvals is a plus.
You'll have the opportunity to influence a project from the day we're considering buying the property to the day the homes are under construction. You'll help answer the questions that shape the entire project: What should we build here? How many homes can we fit? What plan works best on this lot? How should the home look? How can we make the plan better? And how do we get it designed, permitted and into construction efficiently?
You'll work directly with the owner of the company and have significant freedom to bring ideas forward, solve problems and shape our future residential product.
We're a growing company, so this role can grow as well. Initially, you'll be very hands-on with design, drafting and permitting. Over time, there is an opportunity to take greater ownership of land planning and development and ultimately help build and lead an internal design and development team.
If you're someone who enjoys designing homes, solving difficult sites and then seeing what you drew actually get built, this is the kind of position where you can have a real impact.