In this trade the people are the company.

Never held the licence yourself? This part is written for you

California asks for four years of journey-level experience in the last ten: journeyman, foreman, supervisor, or running your own crew. There are no educational requirements at all, and a completed apprenticeship or trade school can count toward the four years.

If that is you, we cover the application and the exam fees, and the licence stays in your name. If you held one at any point in the last five years the exams are waived outright. Past that window they are not, which is the Board’s rule rather than ours.

The work

You are the qualifying individual on the licence and the operator of the business behind it, responsible for the work that goes out under your number. You run production: crews, schedule, quality, and the money each job makes or loses.

What the seat carries

• Qualifying the licence, and standing behind it. A real responsibility, not a name on a form, and we will not structure it as one.
• Building the bench beneath you, so the business is not one person deep.
• Owning the relationship with the CSLB, the bond, and workers’ compensation.
• Estimating and pricing, or holding whoever does to the standard on this page.

On how this is structured, since you will ask

A qualifier who is not genuinely running the business is an arrangement the CSLB treats seriously, and so do we. If the seat is real, the authority is real. The licence stays in your name. We will not offer, and will not accept, a licence-renting structure by any name.

What it comes with

A salary that does not depend on a deal closing. Back office, payroll, insurance and permits handled, so you run roofing rather than paperwork.

What we look for

• On the roof, not a clipboard. Leading a tear-off while running it.
• Holding a schedule, a crew and a standard at once, and saying so early when one of the three is slipping.
• Enforcing OSHA and site safety as a habit rather than a briefing.
• Checking the work against the standard before the customer does.
• Materials on site before the crew is, and the paperwork done after they leave.
• Bilingual English and Spanish is a real advantage on most Bay Area crews.

What it comes with

Truck and fuel, tools, safety equipment, and work that does not stop when one job finishes. Health, dental, vision and a retirement plan with a match.

What we look for

• Real hands-on experience with comp shingle, and the judgement to spot a bad deck before it is covered.
• TPO or PVC experience carries the most weight. Flat-roof skill is the scarcest thing in this market and the hardest to teach quickly.
• Tile, wood shake or standing-seam metal is a genuine plus.
• Finding a leak nobody else found, and fixing it once.
• Turning up on time, and leaving a site clean.

What it comes with

Tools and safety equipment, year-round work rather than a season, and health, dental, vision and a retirement plan with a match.

The work

You are the number the whole job rests on, and you are the person who delivers the standard above. You will never be asked to sell a roof somebody does not need, or to hold a number you did not agree with.

What we look for

• Comp shingle, tile, flat and torch down, tear-off and overlay, and you know what the surprises cost: the deck you find once the old layer is off, the dry rot, the second layer nobody mentioned.
• Homeowners, property managers and insurance work, each of which reads an estimate differently.
• Measuring and scoping accurately enough that the crew is not renegotiating the job from the roof.
• Owning the estimate through to the finished job, so what was priced is what was built.
• Bilingual English and Spanish is a real advantage here, not a footnote.