Lead Detailer
nimlok chicagoDes Plaines (IL)
About the role
Nimlok Chicago is hiring a Lead Detailer to run our Detailing team and set the technical standard for everything we build. This is a working lead role: you'll carry your own senior-level detailing work while shaping how the department operates. We design, engineer, fabricate, install, and manage exhibits, events, and environments under one roof, including in-house metalwork. Your drawings go straight to our own shop floor, and you'll have a direct hand in improving how that handoff works.
What You'll Do:
- Lead the TeamManage the Detailing schedule and assign incoming projects
- Lead team huddles and serve as the go-to resource for detailing questions
- Approve PTO and support day-to-day team management
- Perform senior-level detailing on your own project load
- Own Technical Quality
- Review layouts, details, and setup instructions before release to production
- Provide second-opinion structural review, especially on high-value projects
- Set structural integrity guidelines and escalate to licensed engineering when required
- Build the SystemCreate and maintain standards for deliverables and build methods
- Develop and maintain department policies and procedures
- Build and run the training program for new detailers
- Partner Across TeamsGive Design feedback on build methods, materials and finishes, outsourced items, pricing, CAD systems, and project outcomes
- Collaborate with our build, metal, and wood fabrication departments to ensure build quality and drive continuous improvement of our products
- What You Bring 5+ years detailing or drafting in exhibits, millwork, or custom fabrication
- Advanced proficiency in CAD software (E.g. Vectorworks, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, or similar)
- Strong working knowledge of materials: wood, aluminum extrusion, aluminum, steel, laminates, plastics, fabric graphics
- Understanding of show floor realities and install and dismantle constraints
- Experience leading, mentoring, or reviewing the work of other detailers (preferred)
Before you apply
Applying takes about a minute. These four things decide how fast it moves after that.
Your profile is current
It's what we read first. Occupations, seniority and locations matter more than a long history.
Two examples you can talk through
Not a portfolio — just two pieces of work where you can explain the decisions and what you'd change.
A number in mind
What you're on now and what would make you move. We negotiate better when we know both.
Your notice period
Employers plan around it, and it's the question that stalls offers most often.
Once you apply, someone reads it and calls you before anything reaches the employer — usually within two working days.
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