Operations
Superintendents, General Superintendents, Project Managers, Senior Project Managers, Project Executives, Operations Managers, Directors and VPs of Operations.
Building Careers in Construction
Specialist recruitment for general contractors and self-perform contractors across the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley and Texas. Operations, preconstruction and estimating talent, from project engineer to executive leadership.
What we recruit
Three disciplines
Every hire we make sits in one of three disciplines, whether the client is a GC or a self-perform contractor.
Preconstruction and Estimating
Estimators, Senior and Chief Estimators, Preconstruction Managers, Directors of Preconstruction.
Project Engineering
Field Engineers, Project Engineers, Assistant Project Managers, the next generation of your project leaders.
Track record
Recent placements and searches
Names stay confidential. The work is real.
Superintendent
Commercial building · North Carolina
Seventeen years with one of the Southeast’s largest general contractors. Placed with a North Carolina commercial builder.
Estimator
Preconstruction and estimating · Charlotte, NC
Estimator placed with the Charlotte office of one of the largest self-perform concrete contractors in the US.
Project Manager
Self-perform concrete · Mid-Atlantic
Project manager placed with the Mid-Atlantic business of a national self-perform concrete contractor.
Concrete Superintendent
Self-perform structural concrete · Southeast
Structural concrete superintendent placed with a national self-perform concrete contractor, after we reopened an offer that had stalled.
General Superintendent
Data center · Northern Virginia
Blind search for the mission-critical division of a national general contractor, targeting the Loudoun and Ashburn corridor.
Senior Superintendent
Commercial building · Charleston, SC
Senior superintendent search for a regional commercial general contractor.
Project Manager
Heavy civil and bridge · Eastern North Carolina
DOT bridge and heavy civil project manager search for an established heavy civil contractor.
Plant Superintendent
Water and wastewater · Multi-state
Treatment plant superintendent search for a specialist water and wastewater general contractor.
Where we focus
Regions and markets
Regions
Our core markets are the Carolinas, the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, the Ohio Valley and Texas, including the Northern Virginia data center corridor, Nashville, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Virginia
- Maryland and DC
- Georgia
- Tennessee
- Florida
- Kentucky
- Ohio
- Texas
Also recruiting
- Alabama
- Mississippi
- Louisiana
- Arkansas
- West Virginia
Core marketsAlso recruiting
DC is included with Maryland.
Markets
- Commercial and General Building
- Data Center and Mission-Critical
- Healthcare, Education and Multifamily
- Industrial and Manufacturing
- Self-Perform Concrete and Structural
- Heavy Civil, Water and Utilities
The difference
Proper qualification. Honest advice.
We qualify before you see a resume.
Every candidate is phoned and screened on the projects they have actually delivered, not keyword matched.
We tell you the truth.
If a candidate isn’t right, or your comp is behind the market, you hear it from us first.
Specialist, not volume.
We only recruit construction operations, preconstruction and estimating, so we know who is good and who is available.
Meet the founder
You deal with Sam, start to finish.
Samuel James Recruitment is a specialist desk run by founder Sam Patuzzo. Every brief, every candidate call and every offer goes through him. One person who knows your role inside out, from the first call to the start date.
Insights
From the market
Operations
Superintendents are still the hardest hire in construction
Three in four contractors hiring a superintendent say they’re struggling to find one. Here’s what that looks like on the ground in the Carolinas, and what the firms that are hiring well do differently.
September 2026 · 5 min read
Read article Market
Data centers are pulling talent away from the rest of the Southeast
Data center spending is up almost 60% in a year and Atlanta has overtaken Northern Virginia. If you build anything else in the Southeast, you’re now competing with hyperscale projects for the same people.
September 2026 · 6 min read
Read article Preconstruction
Why good estimators are harder to find than the numbers suggest
On paper, demand for estimators is flat. In practice, 72% of contractors hiring one say it’s hard. The job has changed, and the people who can do the new version of it are scarce.
September 2026 · 5 min read
Read article