Phoebe Lam is the Director of Operations and a Project Manager at William Duff Architects in San Francisco. Along with managing the studio’s operations, planning, and hiring, she also works on projects in the single-family residential and commercial sectors. Drawing on experience creating conceptual designs and site plans for 1,000,000 sq. ft. outdoor retail centers, as well as multi-building and multi-block programs and parking layouts, Phoebe also enjoys more intimate, small scale tenant improvements and homes. She excels at managing complex projects with large numbers of consultants and multiple decision makers, and continually looks for new ways to apply sustainable principles and methods in all of her projects.

In this episode Phoebe talks about how she made the transition from project management into an operations role at her firm, and how her life approach influences the way she views her works. We discuss the pressures of thinking you need to act or be a certain way in the profession or out on a job site, and how to get over it and just focus your energy on your work instead. Phoebe also shares some great insight into how you should embrace the fact that your career is never static and reveals what she looks for when hiring potential employees. Whether you’re fresh out of school or have years of experience, she has great advice for job seekers.