Trueline is seeking a Development Manager / Owner's Representative to join their team in Rochester, New York with a rapidly growing real estate investment, development, and property management company with a strong multifamily portfolio in Western New York, . This individual will lead multifamily developments from early feasibility and design through construction, closeout, and turnover while serving as ownership's trusted point person across finance, design, and construction.
What You'll Do as the Development Manager / Owner's Representative:
- Lead ground-up, adaptive reuse, and multifamily development projects from initial concept through construction completion
- Evaluate project plans, specifications, budgets, and schedules with a focus on constructability, cost control, operational performance, and return on investment
- Coordinate architects, engineers, designers, consultants, contractors, and internal stakeholders throughout the development process
- Compare design and construction alternatives and recommend solutions that balance quality, schedule, cost, and long-term ownership goals
- Partner with ownership and finance teams to keep projects aligned with approved budgets and investment objectives
- Identify project risks early and develop practical strategies to address them
- Prepare bid packages and manage contractor and vendor solicitation
- Review and level proposals, clarify scopes, and support contractor selection and contract negotiations
- Coordinate with affiliated and third-party construction partners to establish complete scopes before work begins
- Serve as the Owner's Representative throughout construction
- Lead owner-architect-contractor meetings and maintain clear accountability across project teams
- Monitor project schedules, budgets, quality standards, safety performance, and key milestones
- Review change orders, resolve project challenges, and protect ownership's interests
- Coordinate permitting, inspections, punch lists, closeout documentation, and final turnover
- Manage multiple active projects while maintaining accurate reporting and project documentation
- Build productive relationships with contractors and consultants while holding all parties accountable for results
Must-Haves as the Development Manager / Owner's Representative:
- 7+ years of multifamily construction project management, owner's representation, or real estate development experience
- Experience managing projects from preconstruction and design through construction completion
- Strong understanding of commercial construction budgeting, scheduling, permitting, sequencing, and procurement
- Experience working directly with architects, engineers, consultants, and design teams
- Ability to review plans for constructability, cost implications, value engineering opportunities, and schedule improvements
- Experience preparing bid packages and evaluating contractor proposals
- Strong commercial judgment and an understanding of how construction decisions affect project economics
- Ability to manage multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, and active projects
- Clear, confident communication and leadership skills
- Ability to independently own projects with limited day-to-day oversight
- Ability to work onsite in Rochester and travel locally to project locations
Nice-to-Haves as the Development Manager / Owner's Representative:
- Adaptive reuse project experience
- Ground-up commercial or multifamily construction experience
- Background with a commercial general contractor, developer, owner's representative, design-build firm, or construction management company
- Experience with financial pro formas, project underwriting, or development feasibility analysis
- Buildertrend experience
- Bachelor's degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Architecture, Real Estate, or a related field
- Experience building or leading a growing development or construction function
This Role Offers:
- Base salary of $100,000-$150,000, based on experience
- Performance-based and annual company bonus opportunities
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- 401(k) plan
- Paid time off
- Vehicle allowance, mileage reimbursement, or company vehicle arrangement
- Opportunity to shape an expanding development platform from an early stage
- Exposure to significant ground-up and adaptive reuse multifamily projects
- Direct access to company leadership and meaningful influence over project strategy
- Long-term advancement into a Director of Development, Director of Construction, or similar leadership role
- Opportunity to build a team and oversee a growing portfolio of projects
Trueline and its clients are unabashed equal-opportunity employers committed to a diverse workforce. We welcome smart and ambitious applicants and recruit, refer, hire, place, and promote without regard to race, color, gender, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, disability, age, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law.
Skills Required
- 7+ years of multifamily construction project management, owner's representation, or real estate development experience
- Experience managing projects from preconstruction and design through construction completion
- Strong understanding of commercial construction budgeting, scheduling, permitting, sequencing, and procurement
- Experience working directly with architects, engineers, consultants, and design teams
- Ability to review plans for constructability, cost implications, value engineering opportunities, and schedule improvements
- Experience preparing bid packages and evaluating contractor proposals
- Strong commercial judgment and an understanding of how construction decisions affect project economics
- Ability to manage multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, and active projects
- Clear, confident communication and leadership skills
- Ability to independently own projects with limited day-to-day oversight
- Ability to work onsite in Rochester and travel locally to project locations
- Adaptive reuse project experience
- Ground-up commercial or multifamily construction experience
- Background with a commercial general contractor, developer, owner's representative, design-build firm, or construction management company
- Experience with financial pro formas, project underwriting, or development feasibility analysis
- Buildertrend experience
- Bachelor's degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Architecture, Real Estate, or a related field
- Experience building or leading a growing development or construction function
What We Do
Who are we? As an independent, full-service marketing and consulting business based in Portland, Maine, we provide strategy, content and design for businesses, nonprofits and individuals in Maine and throughout the world. What do we do? Everything we do revolves around ROI—improving your bottom line. Through a rock-solid communication and branding strategy, we show you how to support and engage your employees, build your workforce, find new clients and support existing business. Here’s a snapshot of our services: Strategy: Branding and rebranding; mission statement; search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine results page (SERP); hiring and retention; fundraising; communicating with board members; personal branding (for executives); events and PR; advertising campaigns; product launches; social media campaigns and management. Design: Websites; logos; promotional material (digital and print); event guides; employee photos; drone video footage; custom magazines; advertisements. Content: Website text; speeches and keynotes; promotional text; employee bios; custom articles; social media posts; newsletters and internal emails; corporate reports. Custom Publishing: Vanguard, Equity, Toggle, Blueprint, Vision, Terra Firma What’s our mission? We want to help you solve real challenges—like growing your business, hiring and retaining employees, fundraising and keeping existing business. Our mission is to do this with honesty and integrity. Authenticity—it’s a good look on you. Why do we do this? We want to reimagine marketing. We want it to be less about the perfect image, and more about using good communication and branding as a way to engage with your employees and clients in successful and lasting relationships. Ultimately, we believe this approach will create a world where people come before profit, where the environment is respected and given back to, and where good business is synonymous with the best intentions.
