Before You Apply
This role requires professional experience assessing the condition of commercial trucks, trailers, or heavy equipment and estimating repair costs. If you have never formally documented deficiencies or assigned repair costs in a professional setting — for a client, employer, or transaction — this is not the right fit. We will test your estimating knowledge during the interview process. Unqualified applications will not be reviewed.
This is a full-time position. It does not start as one.
Who We're Looking For
You have sat on the assessment side of the commercial truck and trailer business. Maybe you wrote estimates at a dealership, appraised equipment for an insurance carrier, reviewed condition reports for an auction house, or managed fleet maintenance budgets. You know what a deficiency looks like, you know what it costs to fix it, and you can put a number on it without looking it up.
The Role
Beacon Inspection operates a national network of independent inspectors who perform condition reports on commercial trucks, trailers, and heavy equipment for buyers, lenders, and fleet operators. As our Quality Control & Damage Estimator, you are the final gatekeeper before any report reaches a client.
Your primary function is QC — auditing 1st-draft inspection reports, flagging deficiencies, and applying repair cost estimates to identified issues. Dispatching and inspector coordination are secondary functions that support the QC pipeline.
Structure & Compensation
Every QC & Estimator hire starts on a paid per-inspection basis: a flat fee for each inspection report you audit and estimate.
The purpose is straightforward. Estimating accuracy is difficult to evaluate in an interview and easy to evaluate against real reports. Once you are consistently clearing reports at our standards.
If you need full-time income beginning immediately, apply anyway and tell us in your cover note. We would rather know up front than lose a strong candidate to a timing problem.
Responsibilities
- Quality Control: Audit 1st-draft inspection reports submitted by field inspectors. Verify photos are complete, clear, and match written findings. Confirm VINs, specs, mileage, tire depths, brake measurements, and fluid data are accurate and internally consistent. Nothing leaves your queue that you wouldn't put your name on.
- Repair Estimating: Assign repair cost estimates to flagged deficiencies. You must be able to distinguish a minor adjustment from a major repair and produce a number you can defend to a client — without assistance.
- Dispatching: Coordinate and offer inspection jobs to our national 1099 inspector network. Manage schedules across multiple time zones without babysitting anyone.
- Inspector Training & Relationships: Walk new inspectors through their first jobs using our guideline sheets and past report examples. Be the most organized, reliable coordinator they work with — that's how you retain the best ones.
Requirements
- Professional Estimating Experience: You have formally estimated or documented repair costs on commercial trucks or trailers in one of the following contexts:
- Dealership service writer or service manager
- Insurance adjuster or equipment appraiser
- Equipment auction or remarketing condition reporting
- Fleet maintenance manager with direct budget responsibility
- Pre-purchase inspection provider
Knowing how to do the repairs yourself does not qualify. We need someone who has priced and documented them for others.
- Commercial Vehicle Literacy: You understand what you are looking at on a Class 6–8 truck or trailer inspection — components, systems, and what failure looks like. You do not need to be a mechanic, but you must speak the language.
- Detail Precision: You catch the transposed VIN digit, the missing photo, the tire depth that contradicts the written finding. This is not a trainable trait — you either have it or you don't.
- Independent Contractor Experience: You've coordinated or worked alongside 1099 workers. You know how to hold a standard without direct authority.
- Remote Discipline: 100% remote. You are self-managing, tech-proficient, and professional on the phone and in writing.
- Organizational Rigor: You are managing an active QC queue, open dispatch jobs, and inspector schedules simultaneously. Nothing falls through the cracks.
Preferred Background
- Service writer or service manager at a commercial truck or equipment dealership
- Insurance appraisal or total loss estimating on commercial vehicles
- Equipment auction or remarketing condition reporting
- Familiarity with DOT inspection criteria or FMCSA standards
Why Beacon Inspection?
- 100% Remote — work from anywhere in the U.S.
- Your work has direct impact — every report you approve goes to a client making a five- or six-figure equipment decision
- Tight-knit, non-corporate team — growing niche leader without the bureaucracy
- Real autonomy — we set the standards; you own the execution
