Project Architect Civic + Public Safety

Pave Talent is running a confidential search for a long-established civic architecture firm in Southern California's Inland Empire. They design police stations, fire stations, libraries, city halls, and community centers for counties and cities they have served for decades, and they need an architect to lead projects, not another layer of production support.

A small, established civic architecture practice in the Inland Empire with a multi-year backlog of booked public work. The portfolio spans public safety, civic, and community facilities, with construction values from modest tenant improvements to nine-figure flagship civic campuses. Because the team is small, the work carries your name on it, not a committee's.

Architects who want to own a project end to end, from design development through the ribbon cutting
Hands-on Revit producers who can open a model today and build a sheet, not just redline one
People who measure themselves on responsiveness. Fast, thorough turnaround is how this firm wins and keeps clients.
Small-firm operators who are resourceful, self-managing, and happy to do the mundane work that keeps a project moving

If you want eight layers of management between you and the client, or a large team where your sheet becomes "we" work, this is not your role.

Prior hires joined as job captains and grew into full project architect ownership within a couple of years, working directly with the principal and a senior architect with more than 20 years in civic work. There is real room to grow, including a path toward principal-level responsibility for the right person. The hiring manager put it plainly about the architects he keeps meeting: many are still titled job captain but are already ready to own projects. If that is you, the title here follows what you demonstrate.

Responsibilities

One to three active civic or public safety projects at a time, from design development through construction administration
Hands-on Revit production every day in BIM 360: sheets, details, coordination, and specifications
Client-facing meetings with county and municipal clients, plus coordination with contractors and long-standing consultant partners
Request for Information (RFI), submittal, and Architect's Supplemental Instruction (ASI) turnaround measured in hours, not days
Plan check, field reports, punch lists, and closeout. You see your projects through to the ribbon cutting.

Qualifications

Roughly 5 or more years of professional architecture experience, with real ownership of your own work
Current, fluent Revit production. A short walkthrough of two or three of your own recent sheets is part of our process.
Real construction phase experience: RFIs, submittals, ASIs, field reports, and punch lists
A stable tenure history. Seeing multi-year project lifecycles through matters more here than raw year count.
Based within commuting distance of Riverside, CA, and available on-site the first year
California Registered Architect (RA) license, late-stage Architect Registration Examination (ARE) candidate, or strong unlicensed senior staff. All are considered.
Civic or public safety experience (police, fire, libraries, city halls). Education, institutional, and commercial building experience translates well.
BIM 360 and Bluebeam proficiency
Roots in the Inland Empire, or a clear reason to be here for the long term

Schedule
On-site in Riverside the first year, with hybrid flexibility available thereafter.

Interested? Apply via LinkedIn and we will reach out to schedule a conversation. This is a confidential search; your application is fully private, and Pave Talent handles all screening and coordination. Candidates do not apply directly to the client.