| Location | Austin, TX |
The Chief Engineer owns the physical standard across every asset
Upfrnt operations - how buildings are maintained, how work is specified and how the line between and Upfrnt repair and an owner's capital decision is recognied and evidenced.
Responsibilities — what you will own
The technical standard
Preventive maintenance programmes by system and climate — written, scheduled, and specified well enough that two technicians do the same job the same way.
Specifications and acceptance criteria for turns, common repairs and make-ready.
The life-safety programme: inspection, testing and record-keeping obligations, and the register that proves they were met.
Shop, tool and chemical discipline across sites.
The boundary — our repair or the owner's asset
Define how a technician recognises a capital, structural or major-system condition in the field, and what stops immediately when they do.
Own the evidence pack that accompanies every escalation: photographs, readings, service history, and a remaining-useful-life view labelled as an estimate.
Route escalations to the Asset Executive Sponsor and stay with them until there is a decision.
The Chief Engineer never approves owner capital spend and never commits Upfrnt to absorbing capital, structural or major-system risk. That risk stays with the owner by design, and no document, scope or conversation may imply otherwise.
Condition assessment at intake
Technical due diligence on properties under consideration, so underwriting is informed by what the asset will actually do over the next twelve months.
Findings go to the Asset Executive Sponsor as input. This seat does not set the offer.
Competency and craft
Define trade skills, certifications and licensing limits for every Maintenance Tech seat.
Build the craft-tier technical training with the Director of Standards & Experience, and sign off technical assessments.
Act as the after-hours technical escalation for conditions beyond the on-site tech, in year one personally.
Hold the dotted line properly: be reachable, give an answer rather than a referral, and make the technical call so the tech does not have to. A dotted line nobody picks up becomes a solid line to nobody.
Vendors, with Procurement
Technical scopes of work, acceptance criteria and warranty capture.
Say what "done" means so that Procurement can hold a vendor to it and Finance can pay against it.
Feed the system of record
Asset registers, PM schedules and failure history as structured data in Upfrnt OS, so the rules engine triggers work rather than a person remembering it.
Every dollar of Cost-to-Serve taken out by standardisation and prevention is a dollar available in what we can offer an owner. That is this seat's contribution to the thesis.
Requirements — what you bring
MUST BRING
Multi-building or multi-property technical leadership: hotel or resort Chief Engineer or Director of Engineering, hospital or campus facilities, senior living, extended-stay portfolio engineering, or multifamily regional maintenance director.
Real trade depth across HVAC, plumbing, electrical and building envelope — enough to say with confidence what is a repair and what is end-of-life.
Has written a standard that other people had to follow, and has delivered bad news to an owner or a GM with evidence attached.
Comfortable putting asset data into a system rather than carrying it in their head.
Texas-based or willing to relocate; travel across the market, and the after-hours technical escalation in year one.