Design Project Manager
Hartford Home Design is seeking an experienced Design Project Manager to lead residential interior design projects from kickoff through design completion, procurement, and construction handoff.
This role sits at the intersection of interior design, project management, client management, and procurement. This role requires strong design knowledge and judgment. Success looks like creating a clear picture for every project that communicates where a project stands, recognizes what is missing, determines what needs to happen next, and keeps the team and client moving toward completion.
The Design Project Manager owns the process, timeline, accountability, and quality of design project delivery, working closely with our Principal Designer/Creative Director and Technical Designer.
Key Responsibilities
Project & Timeline Management
- Own project schedules, milestones, priorities, deliverables, design-hour budgets, and approval gates.
Design Development and Quality
- Translate the Principal Designer’s creative direction into an organized design-development process.
- Guide the development of furnishings, fixtures, finishes, materials, and other selections.
- Review design work for completeness, scale, proportion, functionality, budget, and alignment with approved direction.
- Review presentations, specifications, drawings, and trade documentation before they advance.
- Make routine design decisions within the approved direction and identify work that is not ready to move forward.
Client, Procurement, and Vendor Management
- Manage client decisions, approvals, expectations, deadlines, and scope changes.
- Lead appropriate client and project-management meetings with clear agendas and desired outcomes.
- Document decisions and communicate their impact on scope, schedule, and budget.
- Oversee procurement, including specifications, pricing, quantities, lead times, ordering, delivery, damages, and replacements.
- Coordinate with vendors and identify appropriate alternatives when products are delayed, unavailable, inappropriate, or over budget.
Design-to-Construction Coordination
- Ensure drawings, specifications, selections, trade documents, and client decisions are sufficiently resolved before construction handoff.
- Participate in preconstruction reviews and communicate design intent to the construction team.
- Coordinate the resolution of design questions that arise during construction.
- Maintain a clear picture of where every project stands, what happens next, who owns it, and when it is due.
- Coordinate the Technical Designer’s production workload and provide clear feedback and direction.
- Anticipate dependencies, missing information, scope creep, budget concerns, and schedule risks.
- Recommend solutions and determine which decisions require Principal Designer involvement.
What Success Looks Like
You can look across a portfolio of active projects and quickly explain where each project stands, what needs to happen next, who owns it, when it is due, and what could prevent it from moving forward.
You bring structure to a creative process without unnecessarily slowing it down.
You have enough design experience to recognize when a selection, drawing, presentation, or proposed solution doesn't make sense—and enough judgment to ask the right questions rather than simply moving a task along.
You bring the Principal Designer well-prepared decisions and recommendations rather than problems to untangle.
Most importantly, projects move predictably through design while maintaining the quality and client experience expected from Hartford Home Design.
Qualifications
- Professional experience in residential interior design, architecture, design-build, or a closely related field.
- Strong understanding of interior design principles, furnishings, materials, finishes, fixtures, specifications, and residential construction.
- Demonstrated experience managing multiple projects, timelines, and competing priorities.
- Strong design judgment with the ability to review and provide feedback on another designer's work.
- Experience working directly with residential clients.
- Experience with procurement, sourcing, and vendor management.
- Ability to understand drawings, specifications, and technical design documentation.
- Strong organizational, planning, and follow-through skills.
- Ability to balance design quality with schedule, budget, and scope.
- Strong written and verbal communication.
- Comfortable providing direction, holding others accountable, and making independent decisions.
Who We're Looking For
You are proactive, organized, curious, and comfortable taking ownership.
You naturally think several steps ahead. When someone tells you something is delayed, your instinct is to understand why, what it affects, and what needs to happen to resolve it.
You care about getting things done with efficiency and accuracy.
Team Structure
The Design Project Manager reports to the Principal Designer / Creative Director and works closely with the Technical Designer, Operations/Executive Coordinator, construction team, vendors, and trade partners.
The Principal Designer owns overall creative direction and key design decisions. The Design Project Manager owns turning that direction into an organized, well-managed project that moves from concept to completion.
Pay: $25.00 - $37.00 per hour
Benefits:
- Health savings account
- Paid time off
- Retirement plan
Experience:
- Project management: 4 years (Preferred)
- Interior Design: 3 years (Preferred)
Work Location: In person
