CLASSIFICATION: CLASSIFIED // FOR CRAFTSMEN ONLY
TO: Qualified Personnel FROM: Selection & Assessment Cadre, Cornerstone Builders LLC RE: Framer — Custom Home Operations. Full-time, Sequim WA. $23–$30/hr. DATE: Immediate.
MISSION
ATTENTION. Cornerstone Builders, LLC — veteran-owned, operating continuously in the Sequim and Port Angeles sectors since 1981 — is conducting selection for one (1) entry level framer.
Bags-on field position performing clandestine ops on new custom homes, additions, and whole-house remodels. Designed in-house. No repeat floor plans, no two alike. Built to stand dry, square, and beautiful for the next several hundred years.
This isn't a job where you vanish into a subdivision, just another framer on a big crew. We're a small team where everyone matters — most experienced to least, every person contributes in a real way.
Nobody expects you to show up like Rambo, one-manning a job site with a nail gun and a headband. If you can cut square, nail clean, and give a real day's work, you're what we're after — we'll teach you the rest.
Terrain: wet. Command climate: relaxed. Coffee: constant.
THE JOB
Bags on, most days, most of the year. Building floors, walls, roofs — foundation through exterior finish, working alongside our Lead Carpenter and senior framers.
Cutting. Nailing. Sheathing. Staging material so the crew never stops moving. Demo on remodels. The work a house actually gets built out of.
THE ENEMY
Water.
It does not sleep. It has infinite patience and a perfect memory for the flashing detail somebody rushed on a Friday afternoon.
It also fights dirty. It will find the gap at your cuff the second you reach overhead. It will wait — patiently, deliberately — until your jacket is finally off before it starts again. Once the jacket's back on, you'll sweat fast enough you may as well have left it off. Rain or sweat, water finds a way.
If you've put in a winter here, none of this is news. It's just another day at the office. Bring good boots.
YOUR ARSENAL
You bring your framing bags, hammer, tape, speed square, and a saw.
Everything else is in the armory. It's a trailer, and it holds everything required to build a house from dirt to doorknobs. Big tools. Small tools. Corded, cordless, and a few you didn't know existed. When your tools go dull, we sharpen them. If you'd rather run your own, bring them. If you want a tool you don't have, we'll float you a no-interest loan to buy it.
OPERATIONAL TEMPO
October through March: eight-hour days, Monday through Friday.
When the days get long: four tens, Monday through Thursday. Extended weekend liberty all summer.
We don't run overtime. Our schedules are built so we don't need it. If it happens, it's paid at time and a half — but the plan is always that you finish the week at 40.
Jobsites across Clallam County, occasionally Jefferson. Shop at 261641 Hwy 101, Sequim.
TRAIN-UP
Nobody expects you to know everything on day one. We expect you to know considerably more in six months than you do today, and we put real time into making that happen.
Advanced skills you can learn here:
- Forming complex foundations
- Angled (a.k.a. raked) walls, balloon walls, curved ceilings
- Building decks and forming for concrete flatwork
- Squaring, leveling, plumbing and lining on your own
- Stick-framing roofs and setting complex truss packages
- Cutting and setting large exposed beams
- Finish carpentry — mostly exterior, progressing into interior
- Above-industry-standard weatherproofing,
- Siding, and installing finish hardware
- Basic literacy in the other trades — drywall finish, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, etc
Already do some of it? Say so — it moves you up the band. Can't do any of it yet? That's ok, we plan to teach you.
WHAT YOU DO NEED
- Some framing or construction experience — a year or two is plenty. Real aptitude and work ethic can substitute for part of it.
- Square and angle cuts you can trust: studs, cripples, trimmers, blocking, sheathing
- Nailing driven properly, on pattern, no shiners
- Willingness to get into the trenches on demo day, stage material, and keep the site clean
- Lift 50 lbs and work in Peninsula weather year-round
- Take direction. Knowing what the finished house looks like takes years — until you've got that picture, staying close to the senior guys is how you get it faster than anyone gets it alone.
- Show up. On time. Consistently.
- Care about those around you and the task at hand.
SUSTAINMENT (PAY & BENEFITS)
Less exciting than the rest of this document. Considerably more important.
- $23–$30/hour, depending on skill and experience. More time in the trade and more you can already do moves you up the band — and you'll know your exact starting number before you take the job.
- Health plan — we cover 75% of the premium (high-deductible plan paired with an HSA)
- Long-term disability — 100% company paid
- SIMPLE IRA — 3% company match
- Life and dental — available at group rates, employee-paid
- Paid holidays — Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and the Friday after, and Christmas through New Year's. Typically 10+ company-paid days off.
- Paid time off that grows the longer you're here. Everyone starts at the state minimum. After that we bump your accrual at 3, 6, and 10 years — past what the state requires. The longer you're here, the more you get.
- Time off you're actually encouraged to take. Two weeks of real vacation a year, on top of the paid holidays. Use your accrued PTO or take it unpaid — either way, the time is yours.
- No-interest company loan if you want to buy your own tools
- Year-round work. No seasonal layoffs. You will not be job-hunting every February.
ADVANCEMENT
Defined roles, each with a published wage — so nobody has to guess what it takes to move up, or wonder whether anybody noticed. If you want to move up the ladder there is a path, and room to grow.
Reviews are quarterly and run both directions. Your feedback is just as important as ours.
A NOTE ON SELECTION
We don't select the best candidates. We select the right candidates. Team cohesion is how good homes actually get built, and no amount of skill survives being difficult to work with.
NO KIDDING, THOUGH
You've probably read enough of these to know how they usually go. So if you remember one thing about Cornerstone, make it this:
We build homes to improve our clients' lives, and we run the company to do the same for the people who build them.
If that sounds like your kind of outfit, let's talk.
Apply through Indeed, or contact us directly: [email protected] | (360) 683-8477
We read every application, and if it's a fit you'll hear from us inside a week.
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: From $23.00 per hour
Benefits:
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Health savings account
- On-the-job training
- Opportunities for advancement
- Paid time off
- Parental leave
- Professional development assistance
- Retirement plan
- Tools provided
Work Location: In person
