Head of Operations (Remote, San Diego)

Blacksmith Agency LLC; California; Remote; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Blacksmith Agency is seeking a Head of Operations to run the company day to day with four department leads reporting to you. You will manage weekly rhythms, quarterly priorities, and key tradeoffs to keep the business moving.

You will own profitability metrics, negotiate client contracts and vendor terms, and coach leaders into strong, scalable operators. This remote role reports directly to the founder and oversees hiring and delivery across teams.

Qualifications

• Experience leading multiple functions with clear ownership and reporting lines.
• Track record of growing teams from ~40 to ~140 people.
• Profitability-focused leadership emphasizing margin over top-line revenue.
• Strong negotiation experience on contracts and with people.
• Clear communicator across executives, directors, and founders.

Responsibilities

• Lead four department leads and oversee development, reviews, and contingency decisions.
• Own weekly cadence, quarterly priorities, and tradeoffs when conflicts arise.
• Drive profitability by optimizing margins on delivery and cost of hires.
• Negotiate client contracts and vendor terms; set boundaries of acceptable terms.
• Develop leaders and transition founder's responsibilities to scalable processes.

Skills

leadership

negotiation

communication

operations management

team leadership

Job description

Blacksmith Agency

• Operations
• Full time
• Remote (USA or Canada)

About The Role

Blacksmith Agency is a remote agency building websites and running paid and organic programs for US clients. As Head of Operations you run the company day to day. Sales, recruiting, delivery and marketing all report to this seat. Today that work sits on the founder's desk, which is the whole reason it is open.

What You Own

• Four department leads: their numbers, their development, their reviews, and the call when one of them is not going to get there.
• The week. The meeting rhythm, this quarter's priorities, and what gets cut when two of them collide.
• Profit, measured on attainment rather than activity. Margin on delivery, the real cost of a hire, which business we take and which we turn down.
• The commercial conversations: client contracts and the redlines that come back on them, vendor terms, and what we will and will not agree to.
• Building strong operators into actual leaders. Several of them have never been coached as one.
• The decisions that wait on the founder today, made the same day instead.

What You Need

• More than one function reporting to you, where their numbers, their hiring and the decision when a leader was not working out were yours to make. Running a large team inside a single function is a different job.
• You joined a company at one size and left it three or four times bigger. Forty people to a hundred and forty is the shape we mean. Expect to be asked for the headcount the day you arrived, the day you left, and what you put in place to make the second number survivable.
• A profit number you personally carried. Margin, not revenue somebody else sold and not a budget you were handed to spend.
• Real negotiation experience, on contracts and with people. This seat sits across the table often.
• A communicator. Most of what this job is, is being clear with four leaders and one founder about what is true right now.

Process

Three conversations, then a decision. A thirty minute screen with our recruiter, a first round with the founder this seat reports to, and a final. No take-home project and no panel interview.