Chief Operating Officer

CivicMarketplace; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Meaningful equity

Remote-first team with travel

Job summary

Civic Marketplace is seeking a near-cofounder level operator to own the commercial and operational engine and scale with the CEO AI. You will stay deeply connected to the numbers and lead dashboards, reporting cadences, and performance management.

This role demands founder-level ownership, a GM mindset, and the ability to drive pragmatism, speed, and accountability across a growing organization with a public sector focus.

Qualifications

• Founder-level ownership and accountability for outcomes.
• Hands-on operating experience and comfort with day-to-day metrics.
• Experience building or scaling commercial/operational systems.
• Strong quantitative thinking expressed in dashboards and cohorts.
• Pragmatic, fast-moving with disciplined trade-offs under ambiguity.
• Leadership range to raise standards without a large team.
• Low-ego, high-standards culture and thoughtful decision-making.
• Mission-driven mindset with interest in public sector impact.

Responsibilities

• Own the commercial and operating engine, aligning product, ops and commercial under a single growth north star.
• Stay hands-on with numbers: build and review dashboards and reporting cadences.
• Own P&L mindset and outcomes, including hiring a Commercial Lead reporting to you.
• Help crack the business model to convert growth into a durable, higher-margin business.
• Set tempo, drive urgency, and keep the team focused on actions that move the numbers.
• Build trust with public sector customers and ensure commercial activities withstand scrutiny.

Skills

Founder-level ownership

Hands-on operations

Commercial/operational systems

Dashboards & metrics

Pragmatism & speed

Leadership with high standards

Low-ego, high accountability

Public-sector curiosity

Job description

Role Overview

• Reports to: Al Hleileh, CEO and Co-Founder

• Location: US preferred, remote with regular travel

• Type: Full-time, near-CoFounder level

Civic Marketplace is a modern, data-driven marketplace transforming how local governments buy goods and services. Public procurement is one of the largest, least-modernised workflows in the public sector: slow, fragmented, and compliance-heavy. Our agentic AI workflows help governments discover, evaluate, and engage vendors faster, while opening public sector opportunities to more businesses.

We have real traction, a live customer base, and a compelling market window. We’re looking for a hands-on operating leader to own the commercial and operational engine as we scale.

Why Civic Marketplace?

This is a chance to build category-defining infrastructure with real-world impact. The opportunity sits at three intersections: local governments urgently need better procurement tools; AI can genuinely change the category, from document processing to intelligent agents that improve decisions, flag risk, and support compliance; and the market is still under-contested. This is a high-friction, operationally important market where trust matters deeply and the winner needs both commercial depth and operating judgment.

About the Role

You’ll partner with our CEO AI to build the commercial and operational backbone that lets Civic Marketplace scale without losing speed or trust. This is not a late-stage COO role scaling a working machine, nor a strategy-only Chief of Staff role. We need someone in the weeds, who owns dashboards personally, unblocks the team, and knows what to prioritise next.

You will:

• Own the commercial and operating engine, connecting product, ops, and commercial around a single growth north star.

• Stay hands-on with the numbers: build and personally review dashboards, reporting cadence, and performance management.

• Bring a GM and P&L mindset, owning commercial and operational outcomes, including hiring a Commercial Lead who reports to you.

• Help crack the business model, not just execute it, converting growth into a durable, higher-margin business.

• Create urgency and clarity: set the tempo, make pragmatic trade-offs, and keep the team focused on what moves the number.

• Build for trust with public sector customers, where everything we do commercially must hold up to scrutiny.

This role is high autonomy, high trust, and high ownership, with material impact on the business, the team, and Civic’s long-term commercial direction.

About You

You’re probably not a career COO who has only scaled a working machine. You may be an early-stage GM, a Chief of Staff with real operating range, a founder or ex-founder, or a business operations leader who has built zero-to-one systems and wants a near-cofounder seat.

You likely have:

• Founder-level ownership: you take responsibility for outcomes, create clarity, and do the unglamorous work when it matters.

• Recent hands-on operating experience, staying close to the numbers and the day-to-day because you want to.

• Experience building commercial or operational systems close to scratch, ideally in an early-stage or fast-moving environment.

• Strong quantitative instincts: you think in dashboards, cohorts, and unit economics.

• Pragmatism and speed: you know when to move fast, when to invest in rigor, and when to cut scope, and operate under ambiguity.

• Leadership range: you can coach and raise standards even without a large team yet.

• Low-ego and high standards: direct, curious, and comfortable being challenged.

• Mission-driven, with public sector curiosity. No prior public sector experience required, but a belief that government can buy and operate better is an advantage.

We’re especially interested in people who have operated as a GM, COO, or Chief of Staff in an early-stage company, or who come from marketplace, regulated, or compliance-heavy environments.

What’s in it for You

• Real commercial ownership: you help decide the plan, not just execute someone else’s.

• A market with room to win: public procurement is large, important, underserved, and the AI-native version hasn’t been won yet.

• A small, committed team of thoughtful, motivated operators and engineers.

• Competitive compensation and meaningful equity, structured for a high-impact, near-cofounder role.

• A remote-first team with regular time together; distributed by design, with travel given how central relationships are.