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We build on Anna Maria Island, Longboat Key, Lido Key, Siesta Key, and the Pinellas beaches. Waterfront and Gulf-front lots, VE and Coastal A zones, structures seaward of the Coastal Construction Control Line, and a permitting environment that got materially harder after hurricanes.
This is not a role a strong architect can learn on the job here. The knowledge that makes someone effective in this market is jurisdiction-specific and hard-won: which island measures building height from grade versus from the flood elevation, whether the effective FIRM panel for a given lot shows the LiMWA, what the substantial improvement lookback is in the municipality you're standing in, and how much FDEP clock a CCCL permit will add to the schedule. Get any one of those wrong at schematic design and the project is either unbuildable or unprofitable by the time anyone notices.
So we are screening hard for verifiable permitting experience in Manatee, Sarasota, Hillsborough, and Pinellas counties and their barrier island municipalities. If your coastal experience is in another state or another part of Florida, we respect it, and it is probably not enough for this seat.
About Noah Thomas Builders
Noah Thomas Builders builds custom homes and multifamily residential across Florida's Gulf Coast — Manatee, Sarasota, Hillsborough, and Pinellas counties, including the barrier islands. Waterfront lots, elevated coastal structures, and the kind of one-off detailing that never repeats from job to job.
We are bringing architecture in-house. Right now every plan set goes out to an outside firm, and every revision, every plan-review comment, and every field question waits in someone else's queue. On a coastal set with a CCCL permit and a flood review layered on top, that queue is the largest single delay between a signed contract and a permit in hand. This role exists to end it.
Job Summary
You will be the architect of record for our residential work — originating designs, producing complete permit sets, and sealing them. Not documenting someone else's concept and not managing a drafting queue: designing homes and multifamily buildings from program to permit, then standing behind them with your seal.
You will also own the coastal and flood regulatory path on every project. Site due diligence, flood zone and elevation strategy, CCCL and coastal setback determinations, substantial improvement screening, turtle lighting compliance, and the certifications that only a registered design professional can sign. On a barrier island lot that work starts before the first sketch and it determines what the house can be.
You will work directly with owners, with our construction leadership, and with our structural Engineer of Record. You are the first architect this company has employed, which means you are also building the standards, templates, detail library, and per-jurisdiction knowledge base that everyone who comes after you will work from.
This is a high-autonomy seat with no layers between you and the decision-makers. It is also a seat where the drawings you produce get built by the people sitting down the hall from you — you will see every detail you draw go into the field, and you will hear about the ones that do not work.
Duties & Responsibilities
Design:
- Take a client's program, site, and budget to a schematic design — space planning, massing, elevations, and the design narrative that sells the home. On an elevated coastal house, entry sequence, garage and storage below the DFE, elevator or stair strategy, and view framing are the design problem.
- Design custom single-family and multifamily residential from scratch, and adapt or reconfigure existing plans to a new lot, a new program, or a new client.
- Develop the design through to a coordinated set: plans, sections, elevations, wall types, window and door schedules, finish schedules, and the details that matter.
- Balance aesthetics, function, and buildability. Our superintendents and framers are your second audience, and a detail nobody can build is a detail that gets changed in the field without you.
- Build and maintain NTB's design standards, detail library, plan templates, and per-jurisdiction requirement matrix so the second house is faster than the first.
Construction documents and permitting:
- Produce complete, code-compliant, permit-ready construction document sets to the current Florida Building Code — Residential.
- Sign and seal the architectural drawings under your Florida registration.
- Own code compliance on the architectural scope: egress, stair and guard geometry, ceiling heights, light and ventilation, fire separation, energy compliance, and accessibility where it applies.
- Prepare and submit permit applications; respond to plan-review comments and track them to approval across Manatee, Sarasota, Hillsborough, and Pinellas counties and the island municipalities — including the jurisdictions currently running aggressive retrospective permit review.
- Coordinate the drawing set against surveys, geotechnical reports, civil and site plans, and product approvals.
Coordination:
- Work with our structural Engineer of Record through design, not after it: bearing lines, beam and column locations, foundation type, pile layout, and continuous uplift load path are architectural constraints as much as structural ones.
- Establish opening layouts and schedules against the design pressures the engineer sets, and confirm the selected products' approvals cover them.
- Coordinate mechanical, electrical, and plumbing scope with the trades and with any outside consultants.
- Answer field questions and RFIs, issue revisions and clarifications, and keep the current revision the one crews are building from.
Client-facing work:
- Meet with owners to understand how they intend to live in the house, and guide them through the design decisions that follow.
- Explain the coastal constraints to owners in plain language — why the house has to sit that high, why the ground floor cannot be finished living space, why the windows are tinted, and why the schedule includes a DEP review. Owners who understand the rule accept the design. Owners who hear it for the first time at permit submittal do not.
- Present concepts and revisions in a form a non-architect can actually read.
- Handle the design conversation when the budget and the drawing disagree — early, and with options.
Required Experience
- Active Florida Registered Architect license, in good standing. An out-of-state license with a credible path to Florida registration will be considered, but you must be Florida-active before your first permit set goes out.
- Seven or more years designing and documenting residential work, with at least four on custom single-family homes.
- Demonstrable, verifiable permitting experience in this market. You have taken residential projects through plan review in Manatee, Sarasota, Hillsborough, or Pinellas County and in at least one barrier island municipality. Name them in your application. We will ask about specific projects, specific reviewers, and specific comments you resolved.
- Working command of FBC Chapter R322 and ASCE 24 — the A-zone versus V-zone and Coastal A distinction, enclosure and breakaway wall rules, flood openings, utility elevation, and the design-professional certifications.
- Direct experience with FEMA substantial improvement determinations, including screening a project before design and assembling the cost documentation package.
- Direct experience with an FDEP CCCL permit from application through issuance.
- Practical command of wind-borne debris region requirements, exposure category determination, and opening protection with Florida Product Approvals or Miami-Dade NOAs.
- You have produced complete permit sets that got approved, and you have personally answered the plan-review comments when they did not.
- Strong production ability in AutoCAD and/or Revit. Tell us which, and how deep.
- Ability to work directly with clients and with field staff, and to hold a design position under budget pressure without either caving or digging in.
- Bachelor of Architecture or Master of Architecture.
- Valid Florida driver's license. Authorization to work in the United States.
Preferred Experience
- Experience specifically on Anna Maria Island, Longboat Key, Lido Key, Siesta Key, Casey Key, Manasota Key, or the Pinellas beach communities.
- Experience with Sarasota County's Coastal Setback Code — Gulf Beach Setback Line, Barrier Island Pass Hazard Line, and the BCC variance process.
- Experience with the FDEP 30-year erosion projection on a Gulf-front lot.
- Sea turtle lighting compliance experience, including the glazing transmittance requirement.
- Multifamily residential experience: townhomes, triplex, or condominium.
- Existing working relationships with plan reviewers and floodplain administrators in our jurisdictions.
- Experience on high-end custom homes where the owner and their designer are engaged throughout.
- SketchUp for design development; Lumion, Enscape, or TwinMotion for presentation work.
- Software for redlines, submittals, and plan-review comment response.
- Experience working inside a builder or design-build firm rather than a pure architecture practice.
- A portfolio you are willing to walk us through.
What success looks like
- Permit sets leave NTB complete, and plan review comes back clean the first time. A second round of comments is treated as a defect in our process, not as the cost of doing business.
- Flood zone, elevation strategy, height datum, coastal setback lines, and substantial improvement exposure are all settled before schematic design is presented to the client. No project discovers a binding constraint after the design is sold.
- CCCL and other agency review time is in the schedule from day one, so it is a known cost rather than a surprise delay.
- No project is redesigned because a foundation type, a height limit, or an SI threshold was misread.
- The gap between a signed contract and a submitted permit application shrinks measurably, and keeps shrinking.
- Field questions get answered the same day, because the person who drew it is in the building.
- After a year, the standards, detail library, and per-jurisdiction requirement matrix mean a new plan set takes materially less time than it does today — and any future hire can use them.
Physical requirements and work environment
Primarily an office role with routine visits to active construction sites and to county and municipal building departments. Site visits require standard personal protective equipment and the ability to move across uneven, unfinished ground, climb ladders and stairs, and access unfinished and elevated floor levels. Occasional lifting up to 25 pounds. Local travel to job sites, building departments, agency meetings, and client meetings is expected, including to the barrier islands.
How to apply
Send a resume and a portfolio or work sample that includes at least one complete permit set you sealed for an elevated coastal or waterfront home.
In your cover note, tell us three things:
- Which jurisdictions in Manatee, Sarasota, Hillsborough, or Pinellas you have permitted residential work in, and roughly how many projects in each.
- A project where a flood, CCCL, coastal setback, or substantial improvement constraint changed the design — what the constraint was, when you caught it, and what you did.
- A plan-review comment you disagreed with, and how it resolved.
We read all three. They tell us more than a portfolio does.
Equal opportunity
Noah Thomas Builders is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
This job description describes the general nature and level of work performed in this role. It is not an exhaustive list of all duties, and responsibilities may be modified as the business requires.
Pay: $110,000.00 - $140,000.00 per year
Benefits:
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Bradenton, FL 34209
