Operations Manager, Lifesciences

Company Introduction:

Airspace is a tech-enabled freight forwarder that’s redefining how the world’s most critical packages are delivered. Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, Airspace has employees who are based around the world. Our European headquarters is in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

As a recognized leader in AI and machine learning, our team leverages data and patented technology to coordinate logistics across a global network of drivers and airlines. Our goal is to deliver those packages that are truly mission-critical in a way that is faster, more transparent, more secure, and more accountable than ever before. The items we deliver range from organs for transplant, to parts for critical machinery including grounded aircraft and highly sensitive components such as semiconductors.

Airspace has been rated one of America’s best Startup Employers and listed as one of CNBC’s Disruptor 50 companies. Airspace has the support of leading investors such as Telstra Ventures, HarbourVest Partners, Defy Partners, DBL Partners, and Scale Ventures. To date the company has raised more than $140m.

The company is growing rapidly and serving more places around the world than ever before. We are looking for passionate, motivated individuals who want to make an IMPACT every day to help us execute on our mission of reshaping the world of time-critical logistics.

Own the Performance and Growth of Your Sector

As an Operations Manager, you play a pivotal role in the ongoing performance of your sector and its transformation into a regionally elite operating team as Airspace matures and grows. On several of the sector's biggest calls, you'll partner closely with your Senior Manager today, building toward full ownership of that scope as you grow into the role.

The role sits at the intersection of Operations and nearly everything else at Airspace: Revenue, Network, Finance, R&D, and Quality Assurance all depend on you and your Senior Manager to represent your sector accurately and to bring their priorities back to your team. Because your sector's customers and partners may span regions and time zones, you'll need to be just as effective coaching and leading when you're not in the room as when you are.

What You'll Do

Must be able to understand all responsibilities included in the Ops Expert job description and perform all responsibilities in the Supervisor job description, in addition to the following:

Own Sector Performance and Escalations

Get hands-on with the sector team when needed to support the frontline and protect service levels

Act as the highest escalation point for day-to-day frontline operations within your sector — the first point of contact before an issue needs to go to your Senior Manager or Director

Monitor sector performance trends daily, weekly, and monthly, using coaching and feedback to resolve KPI issues and drive account-level process improvement.

Partner with your sector leadership to define sector-specific Standard Work, KPI benchmarks, and the reporting cadence for leadership (e.g., quarterly executive operations reviews, leadership summits).

Represent Operations Externally and Cross-Functionally

This is an area you'll grow into leading over time. Today, you're the hands-on thought partner to your Senior Manager across the following:

Support your sector leadership in representing your sector during major customer milestone meetings and deployment calls (onboarding, QBRs, escalations, expansion opportunities, etc.).

Partner with Revenue, Network, R&D, and Finance to shape SOPs, support high-value revenue motions, and scope customer-specific solutions that fall outside the normal scope.

Partner with Quality Assurance on live-operational support, shipment reviews, and corrective action plans, ensuring corrective actions are effective and in place

Partner on Staffing and Team Composition

Partner with your Senior Manager on team headcount decisions, hiring, and compensation/leveling decisions for your reporting sector(s)

Partner with sector Directors and the People team on the recruiting pipeline, interview process, and assessment framework

Partner with sector leadership to plan and facilitate new hire onboarding, ensuring systems, hardware, certifications, and introductions are ready

Maintain a coverage schedule that provides sufficient operations coverage 24/7/365 and accounts for the supply needs of your service lines

Own Training and Enablement

Own management of the training platform (WorkRamp) and its associated modules for your sector — keeping content current, assignments on track, and completion visible to leadership

Support new hire training by helping plan the training schedule and stepping in to help deliver content as needed

Coach and Develop Your Leaders

Define and manage a rhythm of the business - routine touchpoints with supervisors, priority-setting, and progress tracking against KPIs- that keeps your team’s leaders aligned, including regular cadences with Driver Operations and Network.

Conduct regular skip-level 1:1s with frontline operators (Specialists, Experts) to stay connected to on-the-ground performance and surface issues before they escalate

Partner with your Senior Manager on Semi-Annual Review (SAR) prep — building promotion and merit increase cases, preparing supporting documents, and scheduling and running SAR meetings

Define personal performance goals and coach individual contributors (Specialists, Experts) and personnel leaders (Supervisors) on technical, operational, and communication skills through individual conversations and structured training.

Hold regular meeting cadences with Driver Operations and Network to align on the needs, requirements, and support your sector requires from those teams

Drive Continuous Improvement

Scope, lead, or supervise initiatives supporting company OKRs, sector performance gaps, or new capability requirements — as the primary responsible party, end to end

Build roll-out plans for new processes and lead supervisors and leads to drive high adoption

Proactively identify where new services, capabilities, or certifications would benefit the sector, and drive execution — including work plans and resourcing — with Operations Leadership approval

Maintain a regular pulse on operational efficiency and service quality, proactively solving for both rather than trading one off against the other

Requirements

Proven experience managing high-performing operations teams, ideally in time-critical logistics, marketplace, or supply chain environments

Demonstrated ownership mindset — comfortable driving outcomes and taking accountability for your decisions, including partnering on hiring, firing, and compensation calls for your team

Strong cross-functional influence, with a track record of aligning Revenue, Network, Finance, R&D, and Quality Assurance without formal authority over those teams

Experience managing distributed teams across time zones and schedules, including maintaining 24/7/365 coverage models

Comfort partnering on KPI definition and owning the follow-through — translating performance trends into coaching, process changes, or escalations

Strong coaching and people-development skills, with experience developing both individual contributors and people managers

Grace under pressure — a track record of navigating and resolving high-stakes, high-visibility situations

Bachelor's degree in a related field, or equivalent practical experience

Your First 6 Months

In your first 90 days, build relationships across your sector team and cross-functional partners (Revenue, Network, Finance, QA), develop fluency in your sector’s performance and key accounts, and shadow your sector leadership on cross-functional representation and SAR prep. By 180 days, you’re independently managing day-to-day escalations and staffing coordination, taking a growing lead in cross-functional conversations