Demo

Business Operations Associate

Shields Group Search
Redwood, CA Full Time
POSTED ON 5/4/2026
AVAILABLE BEFORE 7/29/2026

Business Operations Associate

Location: Redwood City, CA (In-person, 5 days/week)

Experience: 2–5 years (versatility > specialization)


About the Company

Our client is building the operating system for consumer packaged goods (CPG).

Every product starts with ingredients and packaging, and today, that work is still run through inboxes, PDFs, and spreadsheets. Procurement is mission-critical, but opaque, manual, and painfully inefficient. It slows innovation, hides costs, and quietly destroys margin.

Our client changes that.

They are building an AI-powered procurement platform that turns email-driven chaos into structured data, visibility, and leverage. Their product sits directly in existing supplier workflows (no portals, no supplier logins) and delivers immediate ROI.

“If you care about margin, availability, and speed, this product is a no-brainer.” — Current customer

Their vision is bold: a world where building a physical product is as simple as launching a website. Their platform is the wedge, and ultimately the operating system, that makes that possible.

The company is led by a repeat founder and CEO. Before writing a line of code, the team conducted 200 customer interviews to validate the problem. Today, they have paying customers, real usage, and real impact.


Why This Role Matters


This is not a back-office ops role.


You will be the CEO’s operational right hand, the person who makes the entire company move faster by taking ownership of the systems, processes, and coordination work that doesn’t belong on any one team’s plate yet. You’ll sit at the intersection of sales, product, recruiting, and customer success, and you’ll context-switch constantly.


Today, the CEO is personally running pipeline reviews, doing BDR founder screens, handling customer check-ins, prepping for demos, coordinating contracts, and planning team events. That’s not sustainable, and it’s pulling time away from closing deals and building the company. Your job is to take that weight off the plate, run it at a higher standard than it’s running today, and only surface what truly requires the CEO’s attention.


They expect you to be AI-native from day one. That means you don’t just use AI tools when someone hands them to you, you actively seek out ways to automate, accelerate, and scale your work with AI. If a task can be done by a model, an agent, or a workflow, you should be the person who builds that before anyone asks.


If you do this well, there is a clear path to Head of Operations or RevOps as the company scales.


What You’ll Do

Sales Operations & Pipeline Support

  • Own CRM hygiene, pipeline reporting, and weekly sales metrics; surface insights, not just data
  • Run the weekly pipeline review and daily standup when the CEO is on calls or traveling
  • Prepare prospect briefings, demo decks, and follow-up materials for active deals
  • Manage contract and MSA workflows through legal review to signature
  • Track and triage inbound leads; coordinate handoffs to BDRs or directly to the CEO


BDR Team Coordination

  • Run daily BDR standups and weekly performance reviews
  • Review outbound sequences and call recordings; flag coaching opportunities to the CEO
  • Track BDR activity metrics and pipeline contribution; own the reporting cadence
  • Be the first filter on BDR questions, blockers, and process improvements


Customer Success & Support

  • Run weekly customer check-ins; escalate only what requires the CEO’s involvement
  • Triage customer issues and coordinate responses across product and engineering
  • Track customer health signals, adoption metrics, and renewal timelines
  • Gather and synthesize customer feedback to inform product direction


Recruiting & People

  • Own the recruiting pipeline: source candidates, manage scheduling, run first screens
  • Conduct first and second interviews for non-executive roles
  • Coordinate team events, offsites, and culture-building logistics
  • Help build lightweight onboarding processes as the team grows


AI, Automation & Systems

  • Build and maintain internal automations using AI tools, APIs, and no-code/low-code platforms
  • Identify manual, repetitive work across the company and proactively automate it
  • Evaluate, implement, and manage internal tools (CRM, analytics, project management, AI agents)
  • Be the team’s go-to resource for “how do we use AI to do this faster and better?”


What They’re Looking For

They care far more about drive, judgment, and adaptability than pedigree.

You should be the kind of person who sees a messy process and can’t help but fix it, and who reaches for an AI tool or script before a spreadsheet.


You might be a fit if you:

  • Thrive in ambiguity and can context-switch between sales ops, recruiting, customer calls, and systems work in the same day
  • Are genuinely curious about AI and already use tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Zapier AI, or similar in your daily work
  • Lean technical; you’re comfortable with APIs, light scripting (Python, SQL, or similar), and building workflows that don’t require an engineer
  • Have strong judgment about when to solve a problem with process vs. tooling vs. just doing it yourself
  • Can run a meeting, write a crisp email, and make a decision without waiting for permission
  • Take pride in operational excellence; you care about the details others overlook
  • Prefer being in the room, in person, solving problems together


Experience that helps (but isn’t required):

  • Biz Ops, Sales Ops, RevOps, or Chief of Staff experience at a startup or high-growth company
  • Experience in B2B SaaS, supply chain, or CPG industries
  • Comfort with HubSpot, Clay, Pendo, Smartlead, or similar GTM tools
  • Background in top-tier consulting, finance, or engineering with a pivot toward operating roles
  • Demonstrated ability to build automations, internal tools, or AI-powered workflows


Values

  • We are reliable, credible, and authentic
  • We are solution-oriented
  • We are proud of our work, our customers, and ourselves


What They Offer

  • Competitive base salary upside
  • Meaningful equity
  • Direct mentorship from a repeat founder & CEO
  • Clear path to grow into a Head of Ops or RevOps role
  • Full health, dental, and vision coverage
  • Unlimited vacation
  • A product and mission you’ll be proud to build around
  • A team you’ll be proud to build with every day

Salary : $140,000 - $160,000

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