Director of Project Management

Creature•Birmingham, AL

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Creature is a vertically integrated Design–Manufacture–Construct (DMC) company headquartered in Birmingham, AL. We replace the century-old, siloed model of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry with one disciplined system — design, manufacturing, and field execution operating as a single team, not a chain of handoffs. Our in-house Plumbing, HVAC, and Carpentry trades are the backbone of that system, and the reason Creature delivers medical and commercial facilities faster, safer, and to a higher standard than a traditional general contractor. Purpose of the Role Own the project management function across Creature's active portfolio — the seat responsible for every dollar of margin, every client relationship, and every contract once the field has already earned its value. This is not a bigger Senior Project Manager role. The Director of Project Management leads and develops every PM and APM on Creature's board, owns P&L and estimating discipline across the portfolio, and operates as the disciplined counterweight to Field Operations, defending the value the field creates while finding new value the field will never see. Where Field Operations plays offense, this seat plays both sides of the ball: defense that protects margin, contract, and client relationship, and an offense of its own that closes the value gaps between design, production, field, and finance. Core Accountability Own the P&L, the client relationship, and the contract on every active project — while building the PM bench, systems, and cross-functional discipline that let Creature's project volume double without the project management function straining twice as hard.

Requirements

10+ years of Project Management experience in commercial construction, with demonstrated P&L ownership across multiple concurrent projects.
Proven experience leading and developing other project managers — not just managing individual project scope.
Deep fluency in contracts, estimating, and change-order/claims management.
Track record of owning client relationships on complex, high-stakes projects.
Based in Birmingham, AL, or willing to relocate.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a self-perform, vertically integrated, or design-build environment.
Healthcare construction experience (ICRA, AHCA, infection control standards).
Financial fluency beyond contract and schedule management — GC fee structures, insurance spread, self-perform economics.
Experience building project controls, reporting systems, or PM organizational structure from the ground up.

Responsibilities

Own P&L and gross margin generation across every active project under this seat, protected by a genuine understanding of the contract rather than discovered after a change-order dispute.
Build estimating discipline that holds up under the actual conditions of the job, not just at bid, and drive change-order and claims management that keeps margin from leaking back out after the field has already earned it.
Track estimating accuracy — variance between bid and actual — and drive it down, project by project.
Lead, manage, and hold accountable every project manager and assistant project manager on Creature's board — not as approver of last resort, but as the leader who develops PMs capable of running a client relationship and a contract independently.
Build the bench faster than the pipeline requires it: cast and recruit the next PM before the contract that needs them is signed, and enrich PM and APM roles with more capability and ownership rather than multiplying headcount to match growth.
Own the primary commercial and contractual relationship with every client — recognizing that on complex, high-stakes projects, that trust is jointly earned with the field leader on site, not carried alone.
Drive full compliance — safety, schedule, ICRA, and labor coordination — on every active project, every week, catching variance from the PM side before it becomes a client issue or a field issue.
Protect margin through contract terms that hold up under real job conditions and insurance and risk positioning that closes the gap between what's sold and what's actually delivered.
Play defense so Field Operations can play offense: every dollar the field extracts only survives if the contract, schedule, and client relationship protect it.
Own the upstream handoff, ensuring design, Precon, and Manufacturing information reaches the field in a form the field can actually execute against.
Own the tie-break protocol with Field Operations before disputes reach the COO — attempt joint resolution against contract terms, schedule logic, and cost impact first, and surface field execution issues jointly the moment they're known rather than absorbing or escalating them by default.
Understand how Creature actually makes money — GC fee capture, insurance spread, self-perform trade margins, overhead absorption, design and production economics — well enough to improve the platform's economics, not just defend the numbers handed down.
Operate as the connective tissue between Design, Production, and Finance, shaping decisions while they're still open rather than inheriting their consequences after they're locked.
Design PM systems — project controls, reporting cadence, document and contract management — before volume demands them, and own the scalability of this seat itself: if Creature's project volume doubles, the system absorbs it, not the person.