Operations Manager

HIVE; Greater London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Hive in the United Kingdom is seeking an Operations Manager to build and run the UK live customer operations. You will own day-to-day performance, manage operators, training, and quality, and help establish the local setup as Hive expands.

As one of the first UK hires, you will support early deployments, create scalable shift structures, and drive continuous improvement with cross-functional teams to deliver reliable and safe autonomous machine operations.

Qualifications

• Experience managing industrial, field, logistics or service operations.
• Experience leading shift-based operational teams.
• Demonstrated people leadership including recruiting, onboarding, coaching and performance management.
• Strong operational planning and execution skills.
• Comfortable owning real-world operations where uptime and customer experience matter.
• Strong safety and quality mindset.

Responsibilities

• Own Live Customer Operations and ensure safe, reliable service across sites.
• Build and lead Hive's UK operator team and develop training pipelines.
• Own operational quality: establish standards, investigate incidents and implement corrective actions.
• Support early UK deployments with cross-functional collaboration and handovers.
• Help build Hive UK by establishing base, suppliers, inventory and local routines.
• Create a structured feedback loop by capturing field insights and driving product/engineering improvements.

Skills

Industrial ops

People leadership

Shift-based teams

Operational planning

Safety & quality

Job description

At Hive, we're building the defining physical AI platform of the next decade.

Industrial labor is one of the most acute bottlenecks in the global economy. Operators are expensive, hard to retain, and working in environments that are increasingly unsafe. The shortage is structural. The window to solve it is now.

Our answer is a machine-agnostic intelligence platform that lets any machine, on any site, perceive, decide, and act autonomously. One platform. Any machine. No fleet replacement.

Already live across multiple sites and customers in Europe - spanning logistics and warehousing, industrial manufacturing, and large-scale chemical production - with a US expansion underway.

The vision: one operator managing hundreds of machines simultaneously. Productive machine-hour cost dropping by 80x, and unlocks the next productivity revolution in physical work.

The mission is to make productivity limitless. Come and help us build it.

The Role

As Operations Manager you will build and run the operational organization behind Hive's live customer operations in the UK.

Following deployment handover, you will own day-to-day operational performance, including operators, shift coverage, training, quality, customer service and continuous improvement.

Initially, the role is broader. As one of Hive's first UK operational hires, you will also help establish our local setup, support early deployments and solve the practical challenges that come with building a new operation from the ground up.

What You Will Do

Own Live Customer Operations

• Own operational performance after deployment handover.

• Ensure Hive delivers a safe, reliable and high-quality service across customer sites.

• Monitor operational KPIs, service quality, incidents and uptime.

• Coordinate operational issues and escalations and ensure clear customer communication.

• Drive root-cause analysis and corrective actions for recurring operational issues.

Build and Lead the Operator Organization in the UK

• Recruit, onboard and develop Hive's UK operator team.

• Build a strong pipeline of experienced industrial machine operators.

• Own operator training and qualification together with relevant Hive teams.

• Develop shift structures, workforce plans and schedules.

• Coach operators and set clear expectations for safety, quality, performance and professionalism.

• Follow up individual and team performance.

Own Operational Quality

• Establish and maintain operational standards and procedures.

• Ensure consistent execution across shifts and customer sites.

• Investigate incidents and deviations and implement corrective actions.

• Build the routines, KPIs and management systems required to scale.

Support Early UK Deployments

• Work closely with the Deployment, Engineering and service teams during launch and hypercare.

• Recruit and train operators ahead of go-live.

• Support operational testing, readiness and transition into steady-state operations.

• Ensure a structured handover from Deployment into Operations.

Help Build Hive UK

• Support establishment of Hive's initial UK operating base and practical local infrastructure.

• Help establish suppliers, equipment, tools, inventory and local operating routines.

• Support recruiting, onboarding, HSE and other practical requirements of a new operation.

• Create structure without adding unnecessary bureaucracy.

Create a Strong Field Feedback Loop

• Capture feedback from customers and operators systematically.

• Translate field experience into actionable improvements for Product, Engineering and Delivery.

• Help prioritize improvements that increase safety, reliability, uptime and operational quality.

What We're Looking For

Essential

• Experience managing industrial, field, logistics or service operations.

• Experience leading shift-based operational teams.

• Demonstrated people leadership including recruiting, onboarding, coaching and performance management.

• Strong operational planning and execution skills.

• Comfortable owning real-world operations where uptime and customer experience matter.

• Strong safety and quality mindset.

• Hands‑on and comfortable working directly with equipment, operators and customer teams.

• Able to build structure in an environment where processes do not yet exist.

• Strong customer communication skills.

• Willingness to travel when operationally required.

• Professional fluency in English and authorization to work in the UK.

Strongly preferred

• Experience from heavy equipment operations, warehousing, logistics, material handling, mining, construction, manufacturing, fleet operations, field service, industrial automation or robotics.

• Experience recruiting and managing forklift, wheel loader, heavy equipment or similar operators.

What success looks like

• Hive has built a strong initial UK operator organization.

• Live customers have reliable operational coverage and clear escalation paths.

• Operators are properly trained, supported and held to clear standards.

• Shift planning and staffing are predictable and scalable.

• Operational incidents are handled quickly and systematically.

• Hive has the foundations of a scalable UK operating model to new hubs.

Why Join Hive?

Join Hive at a pivotal stage as we expand into the UK and build a new category in Physical AI. You’ll work with cutting‑edge autonomy technology and a highly experienced team to bring autonomous industrial machines out of development and into real-world commercial operations.

As we establish and scale our UK operations, you’ll have the opportunity to take on significant responsibility from day one, help shape how we operate in the UK, and build the playbooks for deploying and operating autonomous machines at scale.

Hive values diversity and encourages qualified candidates to apply regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation or background.