David T Phung x FieldAI

I know what construction products need to do.

My B.Arch trained me to think in systems, read MEP drawings, and evaluate constructability. But what I really learned was how to define scope: what's in, what's out, and what happens when you let the boundary slip. That discipline shaped everything I've done since.

At Gruen Associates, I managed 4 commercial construction projects totaling $25M+ across Southern California. Each project had different GCs, different consultants, different constraints. I held the line at a 3% change order rate against an 8-12% industry average by defining clear scope boundaries and rejecting $155K in changes that would have fragmented delivery. That's product discipline applied to construction.

At Happy Friday Coffee, I built a commercial kitchen from permit to production, then operated what I built. I defined the supported workflows (cold brew, batch prep, wholesale fulfillment), said no to custom one-off requests that would break the system, and scaled throughput from 250 to 1,400 units per week. Building something you also operate teaches you which product decisions survive contact with reality.

At Entertainment Partners, I owned a product release train for a 1M-user platform. I managed prioritization across 10 engineers, consolidated 12 APIs into a unified architecture, and maintained 99.98% uptime across a 7-region portfolio. The work was about tradeoffs: what ships, what waits, and what gets cut to protect the core product.

This Senior PM role at FieldAI is the exact convergence: construction domain expertise, product definition instincts, and the operational experience of deploying what I've built into real field conditions.

Why FieldAI needs a construction native defining product.

FieldAI deploys robots on active construction sites. Your customers are GCs, supers, and project teams. They think in construction activities, inspections, verification, punchlist. Ground truth is noisy. Customer expectations vary wildly between a $5M TI and a $200M ground-up. The product manager needs to have lived that variance.

I've managed four projects simultaneously where every owner, every GC, and every inspector had different definitions of "done." The instinct to standardize without losing what matters, to define supported workflows and explicitly document what's out of scope, that's what I built my career on.

This isn't a delivery role. It's a definition role. And the hardest part of defining product for construction is knowing when a customer request is a real workflow gap versus a one-off customization that fragments the platform. I've spent 7 years learning the difference from the field side. I'm ready to apply it from the product side.

My experience → FieldAI's product needs.

Defined scope for 4 simultaneous construction projects, each with different owners, GCs, and constraints

Own product definition for construction-focused capabilities, including scope, configurations, and constraints

Rejected $155K of $340K in change orders with documentation to protect project scope

Prevent fragmentation across customers, projects, and deployments

Built a facility, defined its supported workflows, scaled 250 to 1,400 units/week

Define supported construction workflows and explicitly document what is out of scope

Led 10-engineer release train, managed prioritization and tradeoffs across competing stakeholder needs

Make prioritization and tradeoff decisions that favor reuse and long-term product integrity

Coordinated 20+ consultants across structural, MEP, civil, fire protection disciplines

Partner closely with engineering, robotics, and AI teams on feasibility and sequencing

Standardized PM frameworks across a 7-region portfolio at 40+ stakeholder summit

Translate field realities into scalable product direction without customer-specific customization

Served as single point of authority for scope decisions across $25M+ in active projects

Serve as the product authority for construction scope questions and escalations

Consolidated 12 APIs into unified architecture, eliminated redundancy across product surface

Own product definition that ensures engineering, sales, and delivery operate from a single product truth

Proof of product discipline.

$25M+

Construction scope defined and delivered

CO rate vs 8-12% avg (scope discipline)

$155K

In scope creep rejected with documentation

460%

Throughput scaling on workflows I defined

12 → 1

APIs consolidated into unified product

99.98%

Uptime on 1M-user platform I managed

Every line in the job posting. Matched.

6-10 years of product management on complex or technical products

7+ years across construction PM ($25M+), facility product-ops (ground-up build to 1,400 units/week), and software product management (1M-user platform, 10-engineer release train)

Experience with construction technology, field-deployed systems, or operational software

Managed construction projects using Procore, PlanGrid, Bluebeam, BIM coordination. Built and operated a field facility. Led product on enterprise operational software at Entertainment Partners

Experience with construction activities, inspection, or reality capture workflows

Managed inspections across 3 government agencies, coordinated MEP rough-in verification, punchlist closeout, and certificate of occupancy workflows on 4 simultaneous projects

Familiarity with BIM, VDC, or construction operations

B.Arch with AutoCAD/BIM training. 5 years coordinating VDC workflows, clash detection reviews, and constructability analysis at Gruen Associates

Strong product sense and comfort making decisions with incomplete information

Construction is incomplete information by default. I made daily scope and sequencing calls with partial drawings, evolving site conditions, and competing stakeholder priorities

Proven ability to say no to protect product boundaries

Evaluated $340K in change orders and rejected $155K with documentation. Maintained 3% CO rate by protecting scope against owner, GC, and consultant pressure

Clear written and verbal communication skills

1.8-day RFI turnaround (industry avg: 7-14 days). Authored scope documents, ran 40+ stakeholder summits, and maintained single-source-of-truth project records across all engagements

Background working with robotics, perception, or AI-driven systems (preferred)

Deep construction domain expertise from the customer side. I am the user persona for FieldAI's construction product, I've lived the inspection, verification, and activity workflows your robots serve

Why this company. Why now.

Construction is the domain I know cold. I've managed the inspections, the verification workflows, the punchlist. I know which construction activities are standardizable and which are noise. That's the core judgment this role demands.

Product definition at the scale-up inflection is existential. $400M+ raised, doubling headcount. The biggest risk now isn't building the wrong thing. It's building too many things. Protecting product boundaries at this stage is what separates platforms from project shops.

Field Foundation Models change the product surface. Risk-aware, physics-first, no GPS or prior maps. The product implications are massive, and the PM needs to define what's supported before the field outpaces the definition.

DPR validated the deployment model. When a top-tier GC reports that your system lets teams focus on critical tasks, that's product-market fit. The next step is defining what scales and what stays custom.

Irvine HQ, I'm in Southern California. Onsite 5 days a week, ready to embed with engineering, sales, and field teams. No relocation friction.

David T Phung → FieldAI

I know what construction products need to do.

Why FieldAI needs a construction native defining product.

My experience → FieldAI's product needs.

Proof of product discipline.

Every line in the job posting. Matched.

Why this company. Why now.

Ready to define product.

I've defined the scope on the construction side.
Let me define the product.