Job Posting: Architectural Designer- Full Time

Location: Fully remote - Central or South America preferred

About Shift Esperanza

Shift Esperanza is a 108-acre regenerative community taking shape on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, 11 neighborhoods, a permaculture farm, 17 km of trails, a wellness-led culture of care, and architecture designed for two decades of hard rain, salt air, and hard use. We work with HWKN and a team of Costa Rica based architects and tropical-design engineers, and we partner with Costa Rican led businesses wherever we can.
https://www.shiftesperanza.com/

We aren’t a typical developer. Our founder, Matthew Blesso, walked away from a $230M project in Brooklyn to build something here that we actually want to live in, sourced as locally as possible, with supply chains we can defend, and a long-term mindset baked into every decision.

About the Role

You’ll sit at the creative core of the development, working directly with the head of design and interiors to shape what life looks like inside every home in the community. You’ll draw schematics for new homes, design the cabinetry and closet doors and bridge rails, build out FF&E for every existing and future home model, and customize floor plans when buyers choose upgrades. The drawings you produce travel from your hand into permit sets, into installation diagrams, into a contractor’s hands, into a finished room someone walks into with their kids.

This is a creative seat with real production discipline. You’ll spend your week between schematic design, interiors specification, and detail drawing, coordinating closely with the project’s architectural team on local construction drawings and permitting, with the procurement specialist on materials, with the construction team on buildability, and with buyers and ownership on selections.

What You’ll Own

• New home design. Schematics, layouts, and elevations for new home models, from the first sketch through design development.

• Detail design. The bridge rails, cabinetry, closet doors, hardware schedules, the things that make a home feel resolved instead of generic. We draw what others would buy off-the-shelf.

• FF&E for every interior. Furniture, fixtures, and equipment for all existing and future home models. Sourcing direction, selection, drawings, and schedules, the full package.

• Installation diagrams. Drawings the install team can build from without 14 follow-up questions. Your job is to make their job obvious.

• Material takeoffs. Quantities and schedules for the procurement specialist to source against.

• Buyer customization. Floor plan and interior modifications when a buyer upgrades or personalizes a home. Fast turnarounds, clean drawings, no drama.

• Cross-team coordination. Project architectural team (local CDs and permitting), procurement, construction, buyers, and ownership. You’re part of every conversation that ends in a drawing.

What You Decide

This isn’t a drafting-monkey job. You make real design calls:

• Material direction and FF&E selection within the design language we set together.

• How a detail resolves, bridge rail profile, cabinetry hinge, closet door type, hardware finish.

• Floor plan modifications that match a buyer brief without breaking the design intent.

• When to push for a custom solution vs. when standard works (and is faster, cheaper, or better).

• What enters the home-model design library and what stays a one-off.

Your call on the detail. Your call on the spec. Your call on the line.

Who You Are

• Architectural designer with three-plus years of drafting and design experience on residential or hospitality projects.

• Bilingual Spanish and English (working fluency in both).

• Strong in Revit, AutoCAD, and SketchUp. Comfortable in at least one rendering tool (Enscape, Lumion, V-Ray, or Twinmotion).

• Carry an interior-design sensibility, you have opinions about hardware, tile, lighting, and how a room should feel.

• Comfortable across disciplines: architecture, interiors, and FF&E specification.

• Detail-oriented enough to produce install-ready drawings the construction team trusts.

• Curious about tropical and coastal design, passive cooling, salt-air resilience, indoor-outdoor flow.

• Comfortable working remotely and disciplined about your own collaboration cadence.

• Based in Central or South America (preferred), the team’s working hours and design conversations live in those time zones.

• A long-term builder, you want to grow with a project, not just deliver one drawing set.

Must-Have

• Architectural drafting fluency in Revit/Archicad, AutoCAD, and SketchUp.

• Demonstrable interior-design or FF&E specification experience.

• Working fluency in Spanish and English.

• Portfolio that includes at least one residential project, with your role clearly stated.

Nice-to-Have

• Tropical, coastal, or remote-site residential experience.

• BIM workflow fluency, Revit families, sheet sets, schedules.

• Rendering chops in Enscape, Lumion, V-Ray, or Twinmotion.

• Material takeoff and quantity-schedule experience.

• Experience working remotely with US/EU clients or developers.

• Comfort with cloud collaboration (Revit Cloud, BIM 360, Procore, or similar).

Growth Path

Shift Esperanza is a multi-year, multi-neighborhood build, so this role has real room to grow as the community scales:

• Year 1. Own the design library for existing home models. Drive FF&E across all homes. Customize buyer selections and modifications. Build the muscle of the role.

• Year 2. Lead new home model designs and specific design domains, signage, bridge details, common-area interiors. Mentor a junior designer if and when we add one.

• Beyond. With strong performance and as the community scales, this role can grow into a Senior Designer or Design Lead seat with broader creative scope and team responsibility.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary

• USD $2,500 per month, paid monthly.

Statutory entitlements (Costa Rican law)

• Aguinaldo, your 13th-month salary, paid in December as required by Costa Rican law.

• CCSS medical coverage, full enrollment in the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social.

• 14 paid vacation days per year (the legal minimum).

Additional benefits

• Performance-based bonus equivalent to one month’s salary, paid based on annual review.

• Tenure-based vacation: one additional vacation day for each year of service, up to a maximum of 20 days.

• Travel expenses fully covered for any trips to Nosara on the company’s behalf, transportation and lodging included.

What Success Looks Like

• By Day 30. Onboarded on every active home design. Started your first buyer customization. The FF&E spreadsheet is in your hands and you’ve made it cleaner than you found it.

• By Day 60. First detail-drawing package shipped to install without escalation. First FF&E spec for a new home model delivered. Coordination cadence with construction, procurement, and the local architectural team is humming.

• By Day 90. Owning all FF&E specifications. Drafting new home designs from scratch. Buyer customizations turn around in days, not weeks. The construction team trusts your drawings.

• By Year 1. The design library is consistent, beautiful, and a real asset to the studio. New home models are coming out of you. You’re the design voice the construction team brings tough questions to.

How to Apply

Send a résumé + portfolio + a 200-word note to studio.mgr@savageforms.com

In the note, tell us about a project where the detail you drew, a cabinet, a railing, a hardware selection, a floor plan move, made the room better than the brief asked for. Bilingual applications welcome (Spanish or English).

https://forms.clickup.com/10643780/f/a4ua4-92877/54H81H72A3W0B73BEQ

We read every application and reply to everyone within one week.

Shift Esperanza is an equal-opportunity employer. We hire for talent, curiosity, and craft, not background, identity, or pedigree. If you’d do this job well but don’t hit every bullet, apply anyway.