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Director of Design

Los Angeles, CA · Full-time · $135,000 – $180,000 per year
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Riley Projects designs and builds custom homes in Los Angeles on one building system: a PE-stamped post-and-beam frame, continuous exterior insulation with a verified air barrier, zero operational carbon with a net-zero-sized solar array included, Red List screened finish packages, and a 10-year structural, 10-year envelope, 5-year systems, 2-year finishes warranty. The Director of Design owns what those homes are, how they look, how they get made and how they go together, from the assembly detail to the permit set to the catalogue every home is configured from.

Design for manufacturing and assembly

You design each home for manufacturing and assembly (DFMA). Every detail carries its fabrication, its tolerances, its install sequence and the handoff between the trades who build it. You draw a wall in the order it goes up and a connection the way it is cut, delivered and fastened. When the field finds a better sequence, you revise the detail and every later home inherits it.

Why the role exists

The building system is the product. The warranty, the fixed price and the live price range in our configurator all rest on the catalogue and the detail library being real, maintained and the default on every home. Until now, project design has run through outside architects and product has sat with the founder. This seat brings both under one owner inside Operations and adds the detail library that has had none.

What you own

  • Design output from concept through permit on every project, and the signoff on every set before it leaves.
  • The detail library and the catalogue: assemblies, products, specifications and the task templates behind them, which the estimate, the schedule and the crews' tasks all read from.
  • How each assembly gets made and goes together: fabrication, tolerances, install sequence and trade handoffs, drawn into the detail.
  • Turning a recurring design decision into a documented standard the next project inherits.
  • Plan check strategy and the agency relationships in each jurisdiction we build in.
  • Hiring and developing the designers and architects.
  • Product development with the CEO: new models, new assemblies, the plan library.

By 90 days

  • Every set that has left for permit since you started carries your signoff, and the designers and architects work from a pre-issue checklist you wrote.
  • The catalogue and detail library are audited against what the field built on the live projects, with a gap list and an order of attack.
  • Each active jurisdiction has a plan check strategy and named agency contacts, and you own the correction responses on the open sets.

By one year

  • Sets issued after month six clear plan check without a resubmittal cycle.
  • Every standard assembly has a published, versioned detail with its install sequence, every active assembly carries your approved specification, and every configurator option has a catalogue entry behind it.
  • A monthly review of design-tagged RFIs and field issues publishes revisions to the library.
  • You have hired the designers and architects the plan calls for, and each is developing against the skills matrix.
  • A twelve-month product roadmap is agreed with the CEO, and one new model or major assembly revision ships into the catalogue each quarter.

What we look for

  • You design for manufacturing and assembly. Your details show how a thing is made and how it goes together, as well as what it is and how it looks.
  • You have taken a one-off design solution and turned it into a specified, priced, reusable assembly that later projects inherited.
  • You draw the water-resistive barrier, flashing and transitions at every penetration from memory, and you can name the failure mode of each one.
  • Sets you signed cleared plan check and framed without a stream of RFIs.
  • You have written standards that outlived your involvement, and you can tell a judgment call from a rule.
  • You choose details and configurations that work across lots and programs, and you have held a standard against a client or an architect who wanted a one-off.
  • We will also ask about developing designers and architects into leads, Los Angeles entitlement (hillside, ADU, SB 9) and detailing an all-electric home to zero operational carbon. Strong candidates can be lighter here.
  • Backgrounds we expect to see: custom residential at $2M to $5M in Los Angeles, or DFMA and productized assemblies at a prefab, panelized, mass timber or modular company. A California architecture license is welcome.

Terms

  • Full-time, based in Los Angeles, with time on our jobsites.
  • Reports to the Head of Operations. Product design and development is held with the CEO.
  • Target start: January 2027.
  • Placement within the stated pay scale follows experience.