Lead Estimator

Position Overview

The Lead Estimator is responsible for leading estimating function and ensuring the company consistently identifies, evaluates, develops, reviews, and submits high-quality estimates for work that aligns with the company's capabilities, capacity, strategic priorities, and profitability goals.

This position is both a working estimator and the leader of the estimating team. The Lead Estimator is expected to personally estimate significant and complex projects while also creating the structure, accountability, prioritization, and quality-control processes necessary for the entire estimating team to perform at a high level.

Success in this role is not measured simply by the number of estimates produced. The Lead Estimator is accountable for ensuring pursues the right work, makes bid/no-bid decisions early, develops accurate and constructible estimates, submits committed bids on time, and continuously improves estimating accuracy using actual field performance and historical results.

Key Responsibilities

Estimating & Preconstruction

• Lead and personally prepare detailed estimates for heavy civil construction projects, including underground utilities, earthwork, site development, concrete paving, and related scopes.
• Review plans, specifications, bid documents, contracts, addenda, and project requirements to establish complete scopes of work.
• Develop quantity takeoffs, crew structures, production assumptions, labor and equipment requirements, material pricing, subcontractor scopes, and project costs.
• Build and maintain estimates in HCSS HeavyBid or the company's designated estimating platform.
• Evaluate construction methods, phasing, access, schedule requirements, logistics, and other factors that affect project cost and execution.
• Identify project risks, exclusions, assumptions, opportunities, and potential scope gaps before bid submission.
• Analyze supplier and subcontractor quotations for completeness, scope coverage, competitiveness, and compliance with bid requirements.
• Lead final estimate and bid reviews with appropriate company leadership before submission.
• Ensure proposals are complete, accurate, competitive, and aligned with margin expectations and business strategy.

Opportunity & Bid Pipeline Management

• Maintain visibility and accountability across the entire estimating pipeline, from initial opportunity through bid decision, estimate development, submission, and result.
• Evaluate opportunities early and drive timely bid/no-bid decisions so estimating resources are concentrated on work has a legitimate reason to pursue.
• Prioritize opportunities based on strategic fit, customer/relationship strength, company capabilities, schedule capacity, competitive position, risk, and potential profitability.
• Coordinate with company leadership and operations when determining whether project schedules and scopes fit available company resources.
• Ensure every committed bid has a clearly assigned estimator, defined responsibilities, submission deadline, and plan for completion.
• Monitor estimating workload and redistribute responsibilities when necessary to protect critical deadlines.
• Prevent unnecessary estimating effort on opportunities that should have been declined earlier.
• Ensure committed bids are completed and submitted on time unless leadership intentionally changes the pursuit decision.
• Maintain accurate status information so company leadership has clear visibility into upcoming opportunities, committed bids, workload, risks, submissions, and results.

RFQ, Supplier & Subcontractor Management

• Establish expectations for timely RFQs to subcontractors and suppliers.
• Ensure critical scopes and specialty items are identified early enough to obtain competitive pricing before bid day.
• Review plan-holder information, subcontractor markets, supplier options, and other available resources to identify appropriate pricing partners.
• Proactively follow up on outstanding quotations and identify missing pricing early enough to develop alternatives.
• Maintain and strengthen network of subcontractors and suppliers.
• Develop processes that reduce last-minute pricing gaps and incomplete bid scopes.

Team Leadership & Accountability

• Lead, supervise, mentor, and develop estimators and estimating support personnel.
• Establish clear responsibilities, priorities, deadlines, and performance expectations for the estimating team.
• Conduct regular workload and bid-status reviews without creating unnecessary administrative burden.
• Hold team members accountable for completing assigned responsibilities and communicating risks or delays early.
• Match estimating assignments to project complexity, estimator capability, workload, and development needs.
• Review work produced by less experienced estimators and provide coaching that improves technical knowledge and estimating judgment.
• Build an estimating environment where problems are surfaced early rather than discovered immediately before bid submission.

Operations & Constructability Collaboration

• Work closely with project managers, superintendents, division leaders, and field personnel to validate production assumptions and constructability.
• Understand field capabilities and incorporate those capabilities into estimating decisions.
• Establish a consistent feedback loop between estimating and operations.
• Compare estimated production assumptions and costs against actual project performance.
• Use completed-project results to continuously improve estimating assumptions, production rates, crew structures, and risk evaluation.
• Participate in project handoff meetings to clearly communicate estimate assumptions, risks, exclusions, production expectations, and pricing strategy to operations.

Estimating Systems & Continuous Improvement

• Maintain and continuously improve estimating standards, workflows, templates, cost structures, and procedures.
• Maintain accurate and useful production rates and estimating information within HeavyBid.
• Use historical job-cost and production information to improve future estimates.
• Identify recurring estimating errors, inefficiencies, scope gaps, or process failures and implement corrective improvements.
• Work with leadership to improve estimating technology, information flow, and visibility without creating unnecessary duplicate systems or administrative work.
• Help develop a scalable estimating operation capable of supporting continued growth.

Performance Expectations

• Quality and accuracy of estimates.
• Percentage of committed bids submitted on time.
• Effectiveness and timeliness of bid/no-bid decisions.
• Estimating workload management and team accountability.
• Frequency of late or missing supplier/subcontractor pricing.
• Quality of scope review and identification of estimating risk.
• Alignment between estimated and actual production performance.
• Effectiveness of estimate-to-operations handoffs.
• Continuous improvement of estimating processes and HeavyBid information.
• Quality of leadership visibility into the estimating pipeline.
• Development and performance of the estimating team.
• Bid results and win rate in the @context of opportunity quality, margin, strategy, and market conditions, rather than win rate alone.

Qualifications:

Experience

• Significant estimating experience in heavy civil construction.
• Experience estimating underground utilities, earthwork, site development, concrete paving, or similar civil scopes strongly preferred.
• Previous experience leading estimators or managing an estimating/preconstruction function preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to independently develop and review complex estimates.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Construction Management, Civil Engineering, or a related field preferred but not required. Equivalent heavy civil estimating and construction experience will be strongly considered.

Technical Skills

• Strong understanding of heavy civil construction means, methods, sequencing, production, and constructability.
• Strong understanding of labor, equipment, material, subcontractor, and production-based estimating.
• Proficiency with HCSS HeavyBid strongly preferred; comparable heavy civil estimating software experience considered.
• Ability to read and interpret construction plans, specifications, contracts, bid forms, and technical documents.
• Strong understanding of project risk, scope development, and bid strategy.
• Ability to use historical production and job-cost information to improve estimating accuracy.

Leadership Competencies

• Ownership & Accountability - Takes responsibility for the performance of the estimating function rather than simply completing assigned estimates.
• Prioritization - Recognizes that estimating capacity is limited and directs resources toward the opportunities that matter most.
• Decisiveness - Makes timely decisions with the information available rather than allowing uncertainty to delay action.
• Attention to Detail - Identifies scope gaps, inconsistencies, pricing risks, and errors before they become bid-day problems.
• Communication - Communicates expectations, risks, deadlines, and decisions clearly with estimators, operations, leadership, suppliers, and subcontractors.
• Construction Judgment - Understands how work will be built and challenges assumptions that do not reflect field reality.
• Team Development - Builds the capability of other estimators instead of becoming the only person capable of completing difficult work.
• Continuous Improvement - Uses mistakes, bid results, and actual project performance to make the estimating operation better.
• Business Judgment - Understands that the goal of estimating is not simply winning work; it is helping secure profitable work that fits the company's capabilities and strategy.

Working Conditions

• Primarily office-based with regular interaction with project teams and field operations.
• Periodic project-site visits are expected to improve understanding of constructability, production, and field capabilities.
• Some travel may be required for project reviews, pre-bid meetings, customer meetings, or other business needs.
• Position requires the ability to manage multiple deadlines and changing priorities in a fast-paced construction environment.