Operations Lead

Kovari; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

In‑person work

Job summary

Kovari, a San Francisco-based robotics hardware startup, seeks an operations generalist to own the company’s operational backbone. You’ll touch hiring, logistics, vendor management, finance, facilities, and other critical owner tasks in a fast-paced, hands-on environment.

The right candidate will thrive in multi‑discipline work, build scalable processes, and help founders stay focused on growing the business. This role requires in-person collaboration here in SF.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to own things end-to-end with minimal direction.
• Comfortable context-switching between spreadsheets, vendor calls, and hands‑on tasks in the same day.
• Strong written and verbal communication — you'll interface with partners, candidates, and investors.
• Bonus: experience in hospitality, hardware, or deployment‑heavy industries.
• Bonus: ability to build lightweight web apps or internal tools.

Responsibilities

• Own logistics and coordination across hardware shipments, vendor relationships, and field deployments
• Drive recruiting operations — sourcing, scheduling, offer logistics, onboarding
• Manage finances at the operational level: expenses, invoices, reimbursements, bookkeeping coordination
• Keep facilities and shop operations running — supplies, equipment, safety, organization
• Build internal processes and tooling as the company scales
• Support business development and investor communications when needed
• Identify gaps before they become problems and fix them without being asked

Skills

Ownership

Context switching

Communication

Hospitality experience

Internal tools

Tools

Internal tooling development

Job description

About Kovari

At Kovari, we're rethinking how physical work gets done in the age of robotics. We believe building robots that can move the economy is one of the most important endeavors in technology.

Our first goal is to build general-purpose robots for hospitality — taking on the physical, repetitive work that keeps the industry operating. The last mile problem for proliferating useful robots into businesses is a first-class innovation problem itself. We marry deep commercial understanding with fast-paced engineering to create robots that move the industry. Since inception, we've raised over $6M from industry-leading investors to carry out that mission.

We are obsessed with rapid iteration, engineering rigor, and deploying real machines into real environments. The next decade will compress a century of progress in robotics. We're looking for people who want to leave their fingerprints on that future.

We are based in San Francisco and work in-person.

The Role

Kovari runs fast. We build hardware, deploy it into live environments, manage vendors, hire people, and ship internal tooling — often all in the same week. This role exists to make sure none of that falls through the cracks.

You will own the operational backbone of the company. No single function, no narrow lane. You'll touch hiring, logistics, vendor management, finance, facilities, and whatever else needs an owner. The best version of this person makes the founders feel like things are handled — and then goes looking for the next problem.

What You'll Do

• Own logistics and coordination across hardware shipments, vendor relationships, and field deployments
• Drive recruiting operations — sourcing, scheduling, offer logistics, onboarding
• Manage finances at the operational level: expenses, invoices, reimbursements, bookkeeping coordination
• Keep facilities and shop operations running — supplies, equipment, safety, organization
• Build internal processes and tooling as the company scales
• Support business development and investor communications when needed
• Identify gaps before they become problems and fix them without being asked

What You Bring

• Proven ability to own things end-to-end with minimal direction
• Comfortable context-switching between spreadsheets, vendor calls, and hands‑on tasks in the same day
• Strong written and verbal communication — you'll interface with partners, candidates, and investors
• Bonus: experience in hospitality, hardware, or deployment‑heavy industries
• Bonus: ability to build lightweight web apps or internal tools

Values

• Pace of learning trumps everything else
• We relentlessly refine our craft
• Low ego, high ownership
• We work in-person and this isn't a 9-to-5 — we're building something hard and need people who are all-in