Business Operations Lead

Location: Preferred Austin, TX (open to remote)
Reports to: President

Type: Mid-level individual contributor — hands-on owner who manages contractors and will grow into people-management responsibilities

Role summary

A practical, systems-minded operator who works with urgency to keep the business running: healthy CRM and workflow ecosystems, reliable dashboards, smooth contractor delivery — plus day-to-day HR and finance coordination so the company operates cleanly as it scales. You’ll scope work, manage contractors or vendors, jump in to make tactical fixes, and own important operational processes like onboarding, offboarding, month-end close coordination, and vendor/contractor finance hygiene. We’re a nimble startup with a bias for action, pragmatic experimentation, and ownership.

Top outcomes (first 3 months)

• Catalog & baseline systems and people ops. Rapid audit of HubSpot, Google Workspace, Notion, QuickBooks and HR touchpoints; document current state, risk areas, and prioritized fixes.

• Dashboards & reporting. Launch reliable KPI dashboards and a “single source of truth” so leadership has live visibility.

• Operational & people processes in motion. Identify all departmental automation asks and prioritize. From there, lead 3-5 automation/workflow projects.

• HR and Finance actions. Establish repeatable onboarding/offboarding and contractor management processes; ensure finance tasks (expense capture, invoices, month-end) are running smoothly with accountants.

Primary responsibilities

Systems, automation & reporting (practical)

• Own CRM + integrations ecosystem (HubSpot and related tools); prevent and resolve silent failures; maintain documented system logic.

• Design and prioritize AI-assisted or automated workflows that reduce recurring manual work; scope projects and coordinate implementers.

• Maintain the single source of truth and KPI dashboards; ensure reporting adapts as processes evolve.

• Establish monitoring & SLAs for automations. Put simple alerting and health-checks in place for key automations and integrations, define basic SLAs for uptime/response, and own escalation paths and post-mortems for failures.

• Own data governance & hygiene. Set and enforce naming conventions, access controls, and data-quality checks so dashboards and AI use trusted inputs; partner with stakeholders to remediate root causes of bad data.

Human resources & people ops

• Onboarding / offboarding: Build and run consistent new-hire onboarding (access, equipment, systems, first-30/60/90 plans) and offboarding (access removal, knowledge capture, contractor transitions).

• Recruiting support: Coordinate interview schedules, candidate communications, offer letters, background checks and onboarding logistics (role does not need to own full recruiting strategy but will operationalize it).

• Contractor & vendor management: Own contractor onboarding, SOWs, approvals, invoicing cadence, and compliance checks; manage contractor performance and payments in partnership with Finance.

• Benefits & payroll coordination: Partner with external payroll/benefits vendors and ensure timely payroll inputs, new-hire enrollments, and benefits changes.

• People documentation & policy: Maintain runbooks for people processes (time off, expenses, travel, remote policies), and support managers with simple HR questions; escalate complex employment matters to external counsel or HR partner as needed.

Finance & accounting operations

• Bookkeeping partnership: Work closely with external accountants to ensure QuickBooks is reconciled and up to date; prepare and deliver supporting schedules and information for month-end.

• Expense & invoice workflow: Own expense policy execution, process employee expenses, vendor invoices and approvals, and ensure timely payments and reimbursements.

• Budget & P&L support: Provide operational P&L visibility to leadership; help translate business activities into clean financial categories.

• Compliance & documentation: Maintain vendor records, insurance certificates when required, and assist with audit-ready documentation.

Cross-functional partnership & reliability

• Act as translator between leadership ideas, community needs, and technical implementers — balancing business impact with practical implementation.

• Create runbooks and playbooks for system and people failures; lead post-mortems and improve processes to reduce repeat incidents.

Required qualifications

• 8+ years experience in operations / RevOps / business operations (startup/scale environment preferred).

• Hands-on with HubSpot and Google Workspace; working knowledge of QuickBooks, Notion, and other similar tools.

• Proven ability to reduce manual work through process design and automation; comfortable scoping technical work and managing contractors.

• Experience applying AI tools to internal workflows.

• Experience coordinating payroll/benefits vendors and working with external accountants.

• Strong systems thinking, process mapping, troubleshooting, and written communication skills.

• Comfortable operating directly with founders/president and partnering with other operational teams.

Preferred (nice-to-have)

• Experience with Zapier/Make or equivalent automation platforms; SQL or BI exposure helpful.

• Based in Austin, TX (preferred) — open to remote candidates who can overlap with CST hours.

Measures of success (6–12 months)

• Complete catalog of system and people-ops gaps with an aligned remediation plan.

• Live, trusted dashboards used in leadership decision-making.

• Smooth, documented onboarding/offboarding and contractor processes with high satisfaction and reduced time/cost to onboard.

• Books and month-end deliverables regularly produced on time with clear reconciliations.

• Material reduction in recurring manual HR/ops/finance work via automation and better processes.