Repair and Maintenance Tech

Maintenance Tech

You keep one apartment community working, and you are trusted to go inside people's homes. Asset Protection & Resident Experience Manager

You run the work and direct contractors, but nobody reports to you

Community size: On site

Living on site: This role comes with a subsidized apartment at the community and living there is a condition of the role. Terms are set out in a separate occupancy agreement, not a resident lease.

You carry the community's emergency phone

Maintenance Tech I: $35,000 – $45,000

Maintenance Tech II: $45,000 – $60,000

Senior Maintenance Tech: $60,000 – $75,000

You are the person who keeps one apartment community running. Repairs, preventive maintenance, getting empty homes ready for the next resident, and managing the contractors who do the work you do not do yourself.

You also live at the community and carry the emergency phone, so when something serious happens at night you are already here.

The part of this job people underestimate is the resident side. You are one of three people a resident ever meets, and the only one who goes into their home. You are not back-of-house here. We treat maintenance as part of the resident's experience, not as a cost line, and we will back you to do the job properly rather than quickly.

A resident is letting you into the place where they sleep, often when they are not there. Drop cloths, shoe covers, tools on your mat and not on their furniture. It is not a story for the office, another resident or a contractor.

Be careful and kind around children, older residents, people who are unwell, and pets. Fair housing applies to maintenance just as much as it applies to leasing.

Our repair or the owner's asset

Upfrnt runs the community. The building still belongs to its owner, and so do the big-ticket items: roofs, structure, slabs, main lines, major systems at the end of their life. A major system problem that sits in someone's head for two weeks becomes an emergency on a Saturday night.

Temporary fixes while a decision is being made are exactly your job.

Talk to the resident about it honestly. Hands-on work across trades: HVAC service and fault-finding, plumbing repairs, electrical within the limits below, appliances, carpentry, drywall, paint, doors, locks, hardware, and pool or amenity equipment where we have it.

We would rather have someone who finds the cause than someone who is quick at swapping parts.

Know which jobs Texas requires a licensed contractor for, and schedule a licensed contractor where it is required.

Record every job in Upfrnt OS: what was wrong, what you did, what parts went in, what is still outstanding.

Preventive maintenance

Run the preventive maintenance calendar and keep to it, including in busy months. Filters, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, extinguishers, water heaters, HVAC servicing, seals, caulking, drains, gutters, exterior and roof checks, pool equipment.

Walk the building on a set round and record condition against a written standard rather than by impression.

Getting homes ready between residents

Scope the work needed on an empty home, do your part, and schedule contractors for the rest.

quality wins if they conflict.

Contractors

Brief contractors on scope, hold them to the schedule, and inspect before you sign anything off.

Tell your manager when a contractor is not meeting the standard.

Life safety first: detectors, extinguishers, exits, lighting, water intrusion.

Carry the emergency phone and respond to after-hours calls.

Know what is never handled alone and call for help without hesitating.

Keep the shop, tools, inventory and chemical storage tidy, stocked and safe.

Check overnight calls and anything the emergency phone brought in.

Quick catch-up with the Customer Service Agent on today's jobs and anything urgent.

Preventive maintenance tasks scheduled for that day.

Check on any contractor working on site.

Several years of hands‑on maintenance across more than one trade, in buildings people were living or staying in.

You document your work. Comfortable using software, and willing to work in our systems rather than around them.

The essential physical functions of this role include lifting and carrying tools, parts and equipment, climbing ladders and stairs, kneeling and working in confined spaces, and responding on foot to emergencies on site.

Willing to live on site and carry the emergency phone.

What helps, but we do not require it

Hotel or resort engineering: maintenance engineer or engineering supervisor. Maintenance in extended-stay, serviced apartments, senior living, clubs or hospitals.

Multifamily maintenance experience.

Spanish alongside English. Many residents at our Texas communities speak Spanish, so it helps.

A solid foundation in at least one trade and around 2 years of hands‑on maintenance in occupied buildings. You work with support on live resident issues until you have passed the first block of training, and we teach you the rest of the trades.

You run your own work orders and the preventive maintenance calendar without supervision, diagnose across HVAC, plumbing, electrical and appliances, hold contractors to a standard, and document to the point where someone else can pick the job up from your notes.

You have effectively run a building on your own. You spot a big‑ticket owner issue early and write it up well enough for a decision to be made on it, you set the standard the rest of us work to, and you are the person who stays calm at two in the morning.

Training we give you

You cannot deal with residents unsupervised until you have passed the first block of training.

The Upfrnt Standard and how we speak to residents.

Fair housing and the rules around entry notice, habitability and retaliation. Upfrnt OS: the work order process, what the system decides, what you approve, and why workarounds cost us.

Where our responsibility ends and the owner's begins, and how to talk to a resident about it.

Contractor and make‑ready standards, and how to inspect against them.

A briefing on your specific community: its systems, access, safety layout, contractors and anything unusual about it.

On call and living on site

You hold the community's emergency phone as a standing part of the role. Relief cover is arranged for vacation, sickness, family and medical leave, jury duty, military service, religious observance and any accommodation you need.

Holding the phone is not the same as being on duty. What we ask is that you answer the phone and can be back on site within 30 minutes if something genuine happens. If you want to be properly unreachable — a trip, an evening out, anything — tell your manager and we put cover in place.

The phone is for genuine emergencies: water, fire, gas, no heat or cooling, lockouts and anything affecting safety or security. Holding the phone carries a standby payment of $100 per week whether or not you are called out. Overtime is paid for attending to emergencies after work hours.

It is provided under a separate occupancy agreement that runs alongside your employment, not under a standard resident lease.

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