Purchasing Manager

Job Description

Job Description

You’re the person who reads an acknowledgement line by line, catches the wrong finish on a pair of sconces, and has it fixed before the factory cuts metal. You know where every open order stands without looking it up, and when a date slips, the designer hears it from you first.

You have five to seven years purchasing for high-end residential or commercial design, a college degree, and Studio Designer skills other people come to you for. You know showrooms, reps, workrooms and lead times, and you have references who vouch for you without hesitating.

We’re hiring a Purchasing Manager for Duet, our design-build group in Denver. You’ll own every order for Duet Design and Duet Build, from the first quote to the last punch item in a client’s home. You report to our Principal at Duet Design on the design side and the President of Duet Build on the build side.

THE STORY

Why this role exists.

We’ve run purchasing through an outside partner, and it taught us what we want: one person, in house, who sits with the team and owns every order start to finish. So we’re bringing purchasing home.

Your lane is clear. Our designers and project managers specify and release. Our Superintendents own the site. Accounting pays the bills. You own the order and everything that follows it: placing it, confirming it, tracking it, fixing it when it goes sideways, receiving it, getting it installed on the date we promised and closing the punch list. On the design side that means furniture, lighting, rugs, window treatments and accessories. On the build side it means the fixtures, hardware, tile and materials Build buys directly.

You’re walking into active projects, a written process and two principals who sit ten feet away and answer the same day.

THE SYSTEM:

How we run a project here.

We don’t make it up as we go. Here’s the system you’d be running:

Released means ordered. When a principal releases an item, it’s ordered within two business days. Client funds sitting on an item that isn’t ordered is the one thing we never want to find.

The release cycle. Every two weeks, three Studio Designer reports go out: office expenses, open orders with vendor balances due, and items with client funds applied but not yet ordered. The principals release. You place.

Tuesday is order day. Every Tuesday you touch every open line, confirm ship dates and send the weekly order summary to the project manager and the principals. Nothing buried, nothing chased.

Slips get named. Any ship date that slips more than two weeks gets escalated the week you learn about it. Anything discontinued or past the install window comes with two alternates.

Approvals before production. Every CFA, DFA and shop drawing goes to the principal before anything is made. Nothing outside a signed proposal or change order gets ordered.

Received means in hand. An item is marked received in Studio Designer only when it’s physically at the warehouse. Every piece is opened, inspected and photographed there, and any damage or wrong item is claimed within forty-eight hours.

Install dates are protected. Fourteen days out, the install plan is issued. Seven days out, every vendor, installer and delivery is reconfirmed in writing. The day after install, the punch list goes out with photos, room by room.

If it isn’t in Studio Designer, it didn’t happen.

THE WORK:

What you’ll own, stage by stage.

Every Duet Design project runs through seven stages, and you own the purchasing side of each one, from the first quote to the last punch item. This is the job, in the order a project moves:

Quotes and proposals. You request net pricing, lead times and freight from vendors and reps, set every item up in Studio Designer and build the proposals. They go to the project manager for internal review before the client sees them, and you pick up the redlines.

• Stage 1. Orders. You place every order on the approved proposal, chase the acknowledgement on every PO and read it against the spec for finish, size, quantity, price and ship-to. The confirmed order list goes to the project folder.
• Stage 2. Order log. You build the project order log, sort it by lead time and give the project manager the longest-lead date, so the install target we give the client holds.
• Stage 3. Expediting and approvals. Every week, you confirm ship dates, route CFAs, DFAs and shop drawings for sign-off, ship COM fabric to the workroom and track cut yardage. Backorders and discontinued pieces come with alternates.
• Stage 4. Measures and trade scheduling. You schedule and attend the workroom field measures, check every opening on the measure sheet against the spec and confirm mount type, hardware and blocking before drapery goes to fabrication. You order wallcovering with twenty percent overage and book the installer’s site walk before the install.
• Stage 5. Receiving. You work with our receiving warehouse so every piece is opened, inspected and photographed when it lands. Ship-to-site is approved in writing. Claims are filed within forty-eight hours. The milestone is every room one hundred percent received.
• Stage 6. Install week. You book any lift or hoist three weeks out, issue the install plan two weeks out and confirm access, parking and building insurance certificates. On install day, you run the sequence with our team and walk each room as it finishes.
• Stage 7. Punch and closeout. The day after install, you build the punch list with photos, room by room, and chase every item to done. Then you close every PO in Studio Designer, collect any vendor credits and help deliver the closeout package to the client.

Build purchasing. You order the plumbing fixtures, door hardware, tile, lighting and other materials Build buys directly, once the client has signed the change order. You time deliveries with the Superintendents so materials land on site when the trades need them, and keep JobTread current on every one.

The weekly rhythm. Monday, the received-date report goes to the project managers. Tuesday, every open line gets touched and the order summary goes out. Every other week, the release cycle. Install weeks, you’re on site.

THE RHYTHM

A week in the life

MONDAY, 8:45AM

The received-date report goes to the project managers. Two pieces for a January install are still in production, so they go on the team agenda with a date next to each.

MONDAY, 1PM

Release review with the principals. Fourteen items are released, and by Wednesday every one is ordered.

TUESDAY, 9AM

Order day. You touch every open line, confirm ship dates and send the weekly order summary by noon.

TUESDAY, 2PM

An acknowledgement comes back with the wrong finish on a pair of sconces. You catch it against the spec, and it’s corrected before production.

WEDNESDAY, 9AM

Workroom field measure on site. Every window gets checked against the measure sheet, and blocking is confirmed before drapery goes to fabrication.

WEDNESDAY, 3PM

A console lands at the warehouse with a cracked leg. Photos, claim filed the same afternoon, replacement on order.

THURSDAY, 8AM

Install day. You run the sequence with our team and walk each room as it finishes. Friday morning, the punch list goes out with photos.

FRIDAY, 5PM

Out, most weeks. When an install or a deadline needs you, you stay until it’s handled. You won’t need anyone to tell you which week is which.

THE START

Your first 90 days

DAY

30

You’ve taken over from our outside purchasing partner. Every active project has an order log, every open PO is mapped and your Tuesday summaries are going out.

DAY

60

You’re running purchasing on your own for both companies. Two release cycles have closed with every item ordered on time, and you’ve run an install from receiving through punch.

DAY

90

Studio Designer is clean: every item at its true status and no client funds sitting on unordered items. You’ve found at least two places our process should get better, and we’ve adopted them.

THE FIT:

Evidence we’re looking for:

• A bachelor’s degree in interior design, architecture, construction management, business or a related field.
• Five to seven years in purchasing or procurement for high-end residential or commercial design, hospitality or construction. You’ve run the full cycle, from order through receiving, install and punch, not one piece of it.
• Studio Designer at an expert level: items, proposals, purchase orders, statuses and reports. We use it every day and won’t teach it from scratch.
• You know the industry. Showrooms, reps, workrooms, COM, CFAs, freight and receiving are your language, and you read a floor plan and a shop drawing without a translator.
• You negotiate hard and fairly. You have a story about a fee, a yardage mistake or a missed ship date you refused to let land on your firm.
• You’re reliable, collaborative and professional with vendors, designers and clients. You write clear emails, and references say yes without hesitating. Excel, Asana and JobTread experience helps.

THE OFFER:

What we pay, what you get.

Base salary of $75,000 to $90,000, based on experience. Three weeks of paid vacation on top of Colorado sick leave and 11 paid holidays. In years the schedule allows, Holiday R+R from Christmas through New Year’s. A 401k with a 4% match, a health care stipend and paid parental leave. Disability and life insurance, plus mileage and a phone stipend. Full time at our Bellaire office, with one remote day a week after your first six months. We’d like you to start right after the new year.

THE PEOPLE:

Who we are, honestly.

Our principals came up in big rooms: large commercial firms, hospitality groups, national architecture and construction practices. We chose residential because of the personal connection with homeowners and what it feels like to create the spaces people live in.

Duet Design has been here since 2011. Duet Build is its sister firm, and Duet Forma is our architecture practice. Together we cover the full path from architecture to interior to built. We do livable luxury for clients who care about the difference between done and well done.

We’re a small team that doesn’t believe in hierarchy theater. Everyone here reports to one of our two principals. We work hard, and we leave in time for our kids’ games. You’ll work hard here. You won’t sacrifice your life for it.

NEXT STEP

To apply

Send your resume to View email address on ziprecruiter.com with names and contact information for two professional references, one of them a direct supervisor. Then give us two paragraphs on each question below. Don’t send a cover letter. We don’t read them.

01 Tell us about an order that went wrong after it was placed: a wrong finish, damage, a missed ship date. How did you find it, and how did it end?

02 Tell us about a vendor who tried to charge a fee that wasn’t yours to pay. What was the conversation, and what was the outcome?

03 Walk us through how you keep a few hundred open line items accurate in Studio Designer. What do you check, and how often?

We read every application. We respond to every application. We move fast when we like what we see.