Manager -Dark Store Operations- Quick commerce

Pylon Management Consulting; Gurugram District; On-site; INR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Pylon Management Consulting is seeking a hands-on Operations Lead to own day-to-day frontline store performance across multiple sites. You will ensure top-SKU availability, on-time deliveries, and disciplined receiving workflows, while building a strong blue-collar team and maintaining high morale.

The role requires 2–5 years of frontline experience, a graduate degree, and a bias for ground-level problem-solving.

Qualifications

• 2–5 years in frontline operations (quick commerce, e-grocery, food delivery, retail store ops, warehousing or logistics) with ownership of a store, hub, or multi-site patch.
• Experience leading store teams or blue-collar workforce and driving performance via scorecards.
• Ability to identify improvements at the shelf, receiving dock, and rider queue; 6 AM store walks are a norm.
• Strong comfort with dashboards and data to explain variances and drive actions.
• Graduation required; engineering/MBA is a plus but ownership and hustle matter most.

Responsibilities

• Hold daily operating rhythm: stock readiness, in-day replenishment, peak-hour staffing, end-of-day reviews.
• Own receiving discipline and first mile quality checks for on-time delivery.
• Drive FEFO rotation, quality culls, markdown discipline, and cycle counts to minimize wastage.
• Lead and develop store teams; manage attendance, scorecards, incentives and engagement.
• Ensure stores are safe, hygienic, audit-ready, and compliant with regulations.
• Ensure rider availability, shift discipline and proper handling of produce.
• Pilot improvements at one store and scale successful practices cluster-wide.
• Launch new dark stores using a playbook and drive to steady-state SLAs.

Skills

People leadership

Ground problem solving

Data driven

Frontline operations

Education

Graduate degree

Engineering / MBA preferred

Job description

What You Will Own

Store Performance & Customer Promise

• Hit the cluster's daily SLAs: top-SKU availability through peak hours, order-to-handover within SLAs, on-time delivery within the 1015 minute promise, and near-zero ops cancellations.
• Run the daily operating rhythm morning stock-on-shelf readiness before store open, in-day replenishment calls, peak-hour staffing, and end-of-day reviews with every store team. Freshness, Inventory & Wastage
• Own receiving discipline for the first mile: on-time goods receipt, QC and grading checks at the door, and put-away before store open.
• Drive FEFO rotation, mid-day quality culls, dump/markdown discipline and daily cycle counts keeping inventory accuracy high and wastage at industry-leading lows without sacrificing availability.
• Hire, train and develop Store Teams and frontline staff attendance, scorecards, incentives and engagement for a large blue-collar team; keep attrition low and morale high.
• Run safe, hygienic, audit-ready stores - FSSAI and labour compliance, safety standards with zero tolerance, and readiness for multi-format operations as Freshly Caf goes live.
• Own rider availability and discipline at your stores - shift adherence, quick hand-offs, doorstep conduct and handling standards for delicate produce.
• Convert every SLA miss into a root cause and a countermeasure; pilot process improvements at one store and scale winners across the cluster.
• Launch new dark stores in your cluster using the launch playbook - site readiness, hiring, training - and take them to steady-state SLAs within weeks.

What You Bring

• Experience: 2-5 years running frontline operations - quick commerce, e-grocery, food delivery, retail store ops, warehousing or logistics - with direct ownership of a store, hub, or multi-site patch and its numbers.
• People leadership: You have managed store teams or supervisors and a blue-collar workforce - hired them, trained them, retained them, and held them to a scorecard.
• Bias for the ground: You solve problems at the shelf, the receiving dock and the rider queue - not over email. 6 AM store walks are your default, not an exception.
• Numbers fluency: Comfortable running your cluster off dashboards and Datas - availability, wastage, picking speed, delivery times - and explaining every variance with a root cause.
• Education: Graduate degree required; engineering / MBA from a strong institute is a plus - but we hire for ownership and hustle over pedigree at this level.