Home builder chief operating officer job description
A home builder COO runs construction in every community, from lot start to final inspection, through superintendents and trade partners. They set the build schedule, the quality and safety rules, and the cost each house has to hit, then report the results to the CEO.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, residential builders and remodelers · BLS, May 2025
Responsible for overseeing daily construction operations, ensuring operational efficiency, and maintaining strict regulatory and safety compliance to support the company’s home building initiatives. Acts as a strategic leader that drives continuous improvement across all construction processes and operational functions. Collaborates with executive management to align construction operations with overall business goals.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Manage daily construction operations from project initiation to completion with a focus on quality and timeliness.
Ensure compliance with building codes, safety regulations, and industry best practices.
Develop and implement operational strategies and process improvements to enhance efficiency and productivity.
Lead and mentor a diverse team of construction and operations professionals, fostering a customer-focused work environment.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Review construction project schedules and oversee resource allocation to maximize operational efficiency.
Monitor on-site performance and compliance, conducting regular inspections and audits.
Liaise with project managers, subcontractors, and suppliers to ensure seamless execution of construction projects.
Analyze and report on operational metrics and update executive leadership on key performance trends.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Project Completion Rate: Achieve a minimum of 95% on-time completions.
Safety Incident Rate: Maintain a safety incident rate below 2%.
Cost Efficiency: Ensure project costs remain within a target variance of less than 5%.
Customer Satisfaction Rating: Attain a client satisfaction score of greater than 4.8 stars.
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Engineering, Business Administration, or a related field.
Minimum of 10 years of experience in construction operations or a similar role with progressive leadership responsibilities.
Strong operational management, strategic planning, and process improvement skills.
Excellent communication, leadership, and decision-making abilities.
6. Preferred Experience
Experience in the residential or home construction industry with a proven track record in scaling operations.
Familiarity with modern construction technologies, digital project management tools, and compliance systems.
Prior experience working in a fast-paced, growth-oriented environment.
Demonstrated ability to lead and work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams.
7. Physical Requirements
Ability to conduct on-site inspections and perform periodical walkthroughs, including navigating construction sites safely.
Capability to lift or move materials up to 25 pounds when necessary.
Required to work in varying weather conditions and environments typical of construction sites.
Mobility to traverse between office and field locations as part of daily operations.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Regular office hours with on-site responsibilities during standard construction hours.
Occasional extended hours to address urgent project issues or meet deadlines.
Travel between multiple construction sites and project locations as required.
Minimal weekend or overtime requirements except during peak project periods.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Salary Range: $150,000 - $200,000 USD per year, commensurate with experience and qualifications.
Eligibility for performance-based bonuses and potential profit-sharing incentives.
Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.
Contribution to a 401(k) retirement plan with company match and additional fringe benefits.
10. Company Culture and Overview
Our company is committed to excellence in home building and innovation in construction practices, fostering a collaborative and supportive work environment.
We value leadership that blends strategic vision with hands-on operational expertise, empowering teams to exceed their potential.
Our culture promotes continuous learning, integrity, and a commitment to safety and quality, inspiring our staff to contribute to the company’s success.
11. How to Apply
If you meet the above criteria and want to be part of a growth-oriented company focused on customer satisfaction, please send your resume to [INSERT EMAIL HERE] or apply online at [INSERT WEBSITE LINK HERE].
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A home builder has many similar houses going up at once, each a few steps apart. The COO's job is to make that repeat work faster, cleaner and safe for every trade on every lot.
Basements are excavations
Where your plans include basements, the hole for the foundation is an excavation under OSHA's rules. Workers in it must be protected from cave-ins by a protective system such as sloping, benching or shoring. The only exceptions: a hole cut wholly into stable rock, or one shallower than five feet where a competent person has examined the soil and found no hint of collapse. Put it on the start checklist. Source: eCFR: 29 CFR 1926.652, OSHA requirements for protective systems in excavations.
In Missouri, small lots can still need a stormwater permit
Missouri requires a land disturbance permit for construction that disturbs one acre or more, and for smaller jobs inside a larger common plan of development or sale that adds up to an acre over the project's life. Treat each lot in a subdivision of an acre or more as covered unless your engineer or the department says otherwise. The permit's main requirement is a stormwater plan with site-specific controls, so the COO decides who keeps silt fence and inlet protection working on each lot. Source: Missouri Department of Natural Resources: Construction and land disturbance stormwater permits.
One plan, built over and over
A production builder repeats the same plans, so a mistake in one set of drawings shows up in every house after it. Keep a plan library with a scope of work for each trade, update it after each problem, and check that every new start uses the current version. The fix belongs in the plan, not in a note to one superintendent.
Your trades also work for the builder down the road
Expect your framers, plumbers and drywall crews to work for other builders too. The COO decides how many houses each trade can carry, makes sure they're paid on time so their crews keep coming back, and lines up a second trade for the scopes that would stop the schedule. When one framer falls behind, every house behind it slips.
Build time is money
Each day a house waits between phases adds loan interest and pushes the sale back. Track build days from start to final for every plan, find the phase where houses wait longest, and fix that handoff first. Report the result by community so superintendents can compare notes.
How much home builder chief operating officers make
The closest BLS group for home builder chief operating officers is chief executives. Chief executives who work for residential builders and remodelers earned a median of $213,510 a year ($102.65 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about the same as the $213,990 median for chief executives in all industries. About 520 of the 204,350 chief executives in that survey work for residential builders and remodelers.
The template offers a salary, performance bonuses and possible profit sharing. BLS counts COOs in its chief executives group, and that group's median for residential builders sits above this template's top figure.
Residential builders and remodelers
$213,510$213,510 median Middle half $157,070–$315,530 10th–90th $91,200–$392,560
All industries
$213,990$213,990 median Middle half $129,540–$356,200 10th–90th $75,700–$507,730
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Residential builders and remodelers
$91,200
$157,070
$213,510
$315,530
$392,560
All industries
$75,700
$129,540
$213,990
$356,200
$507,730
BLS reports home builders and remodelers together. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
The pay line in the template above is an example from our Role Blueprint. Set yours from these figures and what local companies pay.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Has run construction for a builder with homes going up in several communities
Writes scopes of work and quality checklists for each trade
Reads cost reports by plan and by trade
Knows OSHA construction rules for excavations, falls and silica
Has built a team of superintendents and production managers
Teach these on the job
Your plan library and option list
Your local trade partners and their workloads
The inspection offices in each town you build in
Your scheduling and purchase order software
Builder COOs run starts, purchase orders and trade schedules in software such as BuildPro, BuildTopia or Buildertrend, with punch lists on phones. In the interview, ask which report they used to cut build days and what changed after they read it.
Home builder chief operating officer interview questions
Two of the 6 questions we'd ask, and what a strong answer sounds like. Ask every candidate the same questions, and rate each answer on your own before you compare notes.
Situational · Inspection pass rate
Framing inspections are failing at twice the usual rate in two communities. What do you do?
A strong answer: Pulls the failure reasons, checks the framer's work and the superintendent's pre-inspection walk, tightens the checklist, and tracks the pass rate weekly until it recovers.
Behavioral · Scaling operations
Tell me about a time you grew construction operations to build many more homes. What broke first?
A strong answer: Names the specific breaks (superintendent workload, purchasing, scheduling, warranty) and how they fixed each.
The template's numbers are examples. Base yours on past build times, cost reports and buyer surveys, and adjust them for each plan and community.
Project Completion Rate
Count homes finished by the date set at start or promised to the buyer, out of all homes finished in the period. Report it by superintendent and by plan.
Safety Incident Rate
Log every injury and near miss on your sites, including trade partners' crews, and compare it with hours worked. Review each one with the superintendent and the trade's lead.
Cost Efficiency
Track variance purchase orders per house by trade and phase, and trace each one to a missed scope, a plan error or a price change.
Customer Satisfaction Rating
Take the build quality questions from your buyer survey, read them apart from the sales and closing questions, and compare the results by plan and trade.
Career path
Production managerLeads the superintendents and build quality in one market.
Vice president of constructionOwns build time, cost and quality across communities at a larger builder.
Chief operating officerRuns construction, purchasing and safety for the whole company.
How many homes can one superintendent run at a time?
It depends on how spread out the lots are, how complex the plans are and how strong the trades are. Track build days and punch items per superintendent as you add houses, and stop adding when either one slips. An assistant superintendent can take the daily walks and punch work so the superintendent can stay on the schedule.
How much does a home builder chief operating officer make?
Chief executives who work for residential builders and remodelers earned a median of $213,510 a year ($102.65 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $157,070 and $315,530 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
What should a COO do when buyers report the same defect in several homes?
Treat it as a plan or scope problem, not a one-off. Pull the warranty tickets, find the plan, trade and phase they share, and fix the scope or detail before the next start. Then check the homes already under construction and decide which need the fix before drywall closes the walls.
Should a home builder hire a COO from a national builder?
Someone from a national builder brings tested systems, but may expect a purchasing team, a warranty department and staff you don't have. Ask what they did with their own hands, not what their department did. Then have them walk one of your houses under construction and tell you what they would change first.
What field work sits behind the COO template's lifting and weather lines?
The COO walks houses and lots in rain, heat and cold during construction, carries light items such as a sample board or a box of tile, and moves between the office and several communities in a day. Tell candidates how many days a week the role spends in the field and how far apart your communities are.
