Shop Lead, Furniture‑Grade Metal Fabrication

Job Description

Job Description

Fargo Woodworks crafts heirloom-quality office furniture — conference tables, executive and reception desks, and sideboards — built to order in Fargo and shipped nationwide. We don’t mass-produce, we don’t outsource, and we only ship work we’d be proud to put in our own homes.

You start the morning reviewing the Metal Fab queue and confirming internal handoff dates. While fixtures warm up, you walk your two-person cell through priorities, clarifying what must move today to keep downstream woodworking on track. The rest of your day blends hands-on fabrication — layout, cutting, fitting, clean MIG welds, precise grinding, and finishing — with quick problem-solving huddles, quality checks, and status updates to design, engineering, and production. When a one-off challenge appears, you balance strength, appearance, and time, capture the solution in simple documentation, and keep work flowing.

• Own the Metal Fab schedule and deliver on internal handoffs that customer commitments rely on.
• Plan and sequence daily work for a two-person department so deadlines never become last-minute surprises.
• Fabricate custom furniture components end-to-end: read drawings/specs, lay out, cut, fit, MIG weld, grind, finish, and self-inspect.
• Train, coach, and share practical know-how with your teammate and future hires.
• Proactively flag risks, communicate status early, and create recovery plans when dates are at risk.
• Build shop standards: fixtures, repeatable processes, documentation, and quality checks that raise capacity and consistency.
• Troubleshoot unique or first-run parts and recommend practical solutions that respect design intent, durability, look, time, and cost.
• Collaborate tightly with woodworking, design, engineering, production, and leadership to prevent handoff issues and keep the entire shop moving.
• Maintain a safe, organized, production-ready work area, equipment, and material flow.
• Help prioritize investments in tooling, equipment, workflow, and staffing as we grow.

• Lead from the floor: most of your time is on the tools while guiding daily work.
• Treat Metal Fab as the schedule’s linchpin; late legs or bases don’t hold up the shop or the customer.
• Plan ahead, manage competing priorities, protect commitments, and surface risks early.
• When deadlines slip, communicate early, execute a recovery plan, jump in where needed, and stay with the work to completion.
• Safety and quality first, with dependable, on-time delivery.
• Produce excellent results using MIG welders, welding tables, and core cutting/fitting/grinding/finishing tools; large automated equipment is not in place today.
• Coach teammates with clear direction and generous knowledge sharing.
• Shape processes, tooling, staffing, and capacity as Fargo Woodworks scales — and grow into broader leadership.

• Deep metal fabrication and MIG welding experience; you produce accurate, clean, high-quality work independently.
• Experience leading, mentoring, training, or directing another fabricator or tradesperson.
• Proficiency in layout, cutting, fitting, welding, grinding, and finishing.
• Ability to read and interpret fabrication drawings and turn specs into finished parts.
• Excellent mechanical reasoning and practical problem-solving.
• Proven ability to plan work, manage priorities, and consistently meet production or project deadlines.
• Ownership mindset: anticipate needs, communicate risks early, follow through, and understand downstream impacts.
• Comfort balancing hands-on production with coordination, scheduling, and process improvement.
• Resourceful judgment producing custom work with an evolving set of shop tools.
• Consistent focus on safety, quality, organization, and on-time delivery.
• Full-time, on-site availability in Fargo, North Dakota.

Ability to perform the essential physical functions of a fabrication role, including standing, moving, handling material, welding, grinding, bending, and lifting typical shop components, with or without reasonable accommodation.

• Furniture, architectural metalwork, fixtures, railings, or other appearance-critical custom products.
• Steel tubing, plate, and furniture-grade materials and profiles.
• Designing/building jigs and fixtures to improve repeatability in custom or low-volume environments.
• Quality control systems, shop documentation, production scheduling, estimating, or continuous improvement.
• Selecting and implementing new tooling and equipment in a growing shop.
• Interest in growing into broader department leadership.

• MIG Welder
• Manual Grinder

• Troubleshooting Skills
• Welding Setups for Production
• Blueprint Reading

• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Steady, year-round full-time work — we’re growing, not seasonal
• Real ownership of your area
• Modern equipment and a clean, organized shop
• Training and room to grow — we promote from within
• Work you can point to: furniture built to last generations, shipped nationwide

• Proud builders who care how the work turns out
• Reliable teammates who show up every day
• Owners, not order-takers
• People who speak up and solve problems early
• Craftspeople who want to keep improving
• Straight talk: real work at a real standard