Production Estimator - Custom Exhibits and Scenic Fabrication
About The Position
The Factory NYC is a custom fabrication and production company in Brooklyn that builds and installs physical objects for clients, including museum exhibits, brand activations, luxury retail environments, public art, architectural millwork, and unique custom pieces. The company is hiring a Production Estimator to be responsible for determining the cost of building these projects. This role involves analyzing scopes of work, estimating labor, materials, machine time, vendor costs, installation, and risk. The Production Estimator also assesses the feasibility of designs within the given timeframe and capacity, identifying and escalating any risks early on. The work is varied, often involving projects that have not been built before, requiring reasoning about fabrication processes rather than relying on standard unit prices. The Production Estimator will report to the Director of Production and learn the company's methods and cost history from the lead estimator. This is a full estimator position, not a junior role, with ownership of assigned bids.
Requirements
- Seven or more years of estimating experience in custom fabrication, scenic production, construction, or a comparable build environment.
- Real knowledge of fabrication across multiple trades, including carpentry, metalwork, finishing, assembly, and the machine side of CNC and digital fabrication.
- Understanding of fabrication methods and their associated labor hours based on practical observation.
- Ability to read drawings, models, and specifications, translate them into a buildable method, and identify unresolved issues before pricing.
- Judgment regarding capacity, department workload, and lead times, with the willingness to identify and communicate schedule limitations.
- Experience costing materials and vendor scope, and holding vendors to their quoted prices.
- Comfort working within a structured production and quoting system, utilizing connected toolsets and AI tooling in the estimating workflow.
- Strong organizational skills to manage multiple bids with different deadlines without losing detail.
- Clear communication skills to collaborate with account management, project management, drafting, the shop floor, and vendors.
Nice To Haves
- Estimating experience across mixed trades within a single shop, rather than deep expertise in only one trade.
- Direct experience working on a shop floor.
- Experience building or maintaining an estimating library and reconciling it against completed jobs.
- Experience estimating installation and strike, including site conditions, access, and crew size.
- Proficiency in marking up drawings using AutoCAD, Rhino, SketchUp, or comparable software.
- Awareness of CNC and additive manufacturing sufficient to estimate machine time separately from surrounding labor.
Responsibilities
- Review drawings, specifications, and scope of work, and identify areas that are not sufficiently defined for honest costing.
- Break down the scope into buildable components and estimate labor costs for each trade, providing justification for all numbers.
- Determine the build approach, including sequencing, material selection, fabrication methods, and deciding when to use vendors or subcontractors.
- Cost materials, machine time, vendor scope, logistics, installation, and strike.
- Assess estimated hours against shop capacity and escalate potential bottlenecks and schedule risks to the Director of Production.
- Present the build approach to department managers for larger jobs to ensure the fabrication method is pressure-tested before committing to a cost.
- Cost change orders with the same rigor as original estimates and deliver them within required deadlines.
- Hand over estimates to production and walk through them to ensure the shop understands the intended build.
- Build and maintain the estimating library and records of completed job costs, updating them based on actual production results.
- Reconcile estimated costs against actual costs for every job, analyze variances, and use this information to improve future estimates.
Benefits
- Percentage stipend toward medical, vision, and dental insurance.
- Paid time off.
- Savings incentive match plan for employees.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
Associate degree
