Millwork is our first trade.
It won’t be our last.

Working Shop Lead — Commercial Casework

We already have trusted CNC operation and separate engineering support. We need the experienced woodworker who makes sure the work actually goes together.

This is a hands-on lead role. You’ll receive approved drawings, CNC-cut parts, purchased materials, and a required date. You’ll review the work for constructability, plan secondary operations, lead assembly, solve difficult details, and take the job to shop-ready completion — while teaching the people working beside you.

You probably fit if:

• You have five or more years building casework, fixtures, production cabinetry, or architectural millwork.
• You understand particleboard, MDF, melamine, laminate, veneer, edge banding, hardware, and frameless assembly.
• You can read a drawing and see the build sequence — and the likely failure points — before anything is cut.
• You enjoy solving difficult secondary operations and teaching someone else to do them correctly.
• You still want to build, not only supervise.
• You deliver bad news early — a part that won’t work, a date that’s slipping, a mistake you made. In this trade that’s rare. Here it’s the job.
• You want to understand the machines you run, not just operate them — what drifts, why it drifts, and how to bring it back. Knowing a machine is what lets you push it.

You will own the machines. We run our own maintenance calendar — weekly, monthly, quarterly — and we calibrate our own equipment: the edge bander, the sliding saw, the CNC. The manufacturer is an escalation point, not a first call, because a service ticket cannot square a saw at 2pm on a Thursday. This is not about saving money on service contracts. It is that machine knowledge is production knowledge: understanding how a machine behaves and where its limits are is what makes parts accurate — and it is what lets us tune feeds and speeds with confidence instead of guesswork.

What you won’t be asked to own: sales, estimating, CAD detailing, G-code, or corporate plant management. The owner keeps customers and pricing. Engineering keeps Mozaik and CNC-ready data. Your job is how approved work actually gets built.

Pay and what we offer:

• $70,000–$88,000 guaranteed salary based on demonstrated depth — up to $95,000 for exceptional constructability judgment, AWI fluency, or team development.
• Your salary is guaranteed — a slow week never shortens your paycheck. All hours are tracked, and overtime past 40 pays time-and-a-half on top of your salary.
• A $500/month tax-free health allowance (QSEHRA) from your first paycheck, toward the health plan you choose — usable for premiums and out-of-pocket medical costs.
• Two weeks paid time off plus 8 paid holidays.
• All shop tooling provided — the CNC, the Altendorf edge bander and sliding saw, and a Festool-equipped bench. Good machines, kept in calibration, with the training and time to keep them that way.
• A clean, safe shop — dust collection, electric material handling, no LP fumes on the floor.
• Paid training, direct owner access, and real authority over how approved work moves from parts to completion.

We’re a small, growing shop. We pay above market in cash because our benefit plans are still being built — and the person we hire will help shape what we add next.

Schedule: Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 4:30, in the Mooresville shop — with occasional planned overtime tied to committed completion dates (always paid, never assumed) and occasional local site visits for problem solving.

Two of our seven values matter most on this floor: We take long cuts — the hard things done right, especially when no one will see — and Bad news early — we own the message and we own the issue.

See a sample of the drawings you’d build from (PDF) →

Apply with a resume or a short description of what you’ve built — photos welcome. Finalists complete a two-hour paid drawing, constructability, and shop review.

Four questions either way. Indeed asks them for you. If you email or call instead, answer them in your own words:

1. How many years have you spent building commercial casework, cabinetry, fixtures, or architectural millwork in sheet goods — particleboard, MDF, melamine, laminate?
2. Briefly describe the most difficult piece you personally built — what made it hard, and how you sequenced it.
3. Can you reliably commute to Mooresville, NC 28115, Monday to Friday, day shift?
4. Are you authorized to work in the United States?

Prefer not to use Indeed? Email info@peppermodern.com or call 980.288.5123. Same questions, same process — and by email you can send as many photos of your work as you like.