Operations & Office Lead — Aerospace Startup

Hop Aero; California; On-site; USD 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Stock options

Healthcare

Job summary

Hop Aero is hiring an on-site Operations & Office Manager in Orange, CA to keep day-to-day activities running and support the founders, accountant, vendors, and visitors. You will build processes from scratch, own onboarding and the internal tool stack, and coordinate government and investor visits to keep the company organized and compliant.

This fast-paced aerospace startup offers growth into operations leadership, direct access to founders, and meaningful stock options as Hop Aero scales its

Qualifications

• 2+ years of proven experience in office management, operations, HR admin, or similar.
• Strong organizational skills and the discipline to keep multiple parallel threads moving without dropping details.
• Comfortable speaking with vendors and suppliers.
• Strong written communication, comfortable drafting vendor emails, internal updates, and visitor briefs.
• High trust and discretion when handling financials, personnel info, and sensitive visitor logistics.
• Must be on-site full-time at our HQ in Orange, CA.
• Must be a US Person under ITAR.

Responsibilities

• Run day-to-day operations of our Orange, CA facility, including vendors, supplies, and facilities
• Own employee onboarding end to end, including Rippling setup, health insurance enrollment, internal tool access, and workspace setup
• Administer our internal tool stack, including Rippling, Carta, Mercury, and others
• Serve as primary point of contact with our external accountant on bookkeeping, payroll, and monthly close
• Handle City, County, State, and Federal filings, forms, and fees to keep the company in good standing
• Coordinate site visits, investor meetings, congressional delegations, and team events at HQ and our test site
• Serve as first point of contact for new vendors and suppliers, handing off to engineering when the conversation gets technical
• Support procurement and vendor setup for non-technical and light engineering purchases
• Manage shipping, receiving, and delivery intake of mission-critical flight hardware at our Orange facility
• Own logistics between our Orange HQ and our test site in Oklahoma
• Build the processes and systems that enable the company to scale with less chaos
• Act as a cross-functional problem solver who fills gaps before they slow the team down

Tools

Rippling

Carta

Mercury

QuickBooks

Job description

Hop Aero is a venture-backed startup building rockets that deliver cargo anywhere on Earth in minutes.

Our mission is to enable resilient global logistics to protect and improve our way of life.

Our founding team has prior experience founding a satellite startup and taking it to orbit, launching 20+ Falcon 9 missions at SpaceX, and leading engineering teams at some of the world’s most advanced aerospace organizations. The company is well-capitalized through venture funding and government contracts.

About the role

We're hiring an Operations & Office Manager to keep Hop Aero running day to day. This is a high-trust role for someone who takes pride in making a company work behind the scenes, so the engineering team can stay heads-down on hardware.

You'll own office management, handle HR and bookkeeping admin, coordinate VIP visits and events, and support procurement and shipping and receiving. You'll work directly with the founders, the accountant, vendors, and anyone who walks through our front door, including congressional staff, investors, and military customers.

This is not a quiet desk job. We move fast, and the office needs to keep up. You'll build processes from scratch, host visitors from the DoD, unblock engineers who need parts yesterday, and make sure onboarding, payroll, and the coffee machine all just work. If you like bringing order to a fast environment and being the person everyone relies on, you'll do well here.

We see this as a long-term role. We're not looking for someone to fill a seat. We're looking for someone who grows with the company, builds the playbook, and moves into operations leadership as we scale. The person who does this job well will become one of the most important people at Hop Aero.

What you'll do

• Run day-to-day operations of our Orange, CA facility, including vendors, supplies, and facilities
• Own employee onboarding end to end, including Rippling setup, health insurance enrollment, internal tool access, and workspace setup
• Administer our internal tool stack, including Rippling, Carta, Mercury, and others
• Serve as primary point of contact with our external accountant on bookkeeping, payroll, and monthly close
• Handle City, County, State, and Federal filings, forms, and fees to keep the company in good standing
• Coordinate site visits, investor meetings, congressional delegations, and team events at HQ and our test site
• Serve as first point of contact for new vendors and suppliers, handing off to engineering when the conversation gets technical
• Support procurement and vendor setup for non-technical and light engineering purchases
• Manage shipping, receiving, and delivery intake of mission-critical flight hardware at our Orange facility
• Own logistics between our Orange HQ and our test site in Oklahoma
• Build the processes and systems that enable the company to scale with less chaos
• Act as a cross-functional problem solver who fills gaps before they slow the team down

Requirements

• 2+ years of proven experience in office management, operations, HR admin, or similar
• Strong organizational skills and the discipline to keep multiple parallel threads moving without dropping details
• Comfortable speaking with vendors and suppliers
• Strong written communication, comfortable drafting vendor emails, internal updates, and visitor briefs
• High trust and discretion when handling financials, personnel info, and sensitive visitor logistics
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced aerospace hardware environment
• Ability to create processes from scratch rather than inherit them
• Must be on-site full-time at our HQ in Orange, CA
• Must be a US Person under ITAR

Nice to have

• Experience in aerospace, space, defense, or hardware startups
• Exposure to government contracting environments
• Experience hosting government, military, or congressional visitors
• Familiarity with Rippling, Carta, Mercury, QuickBooks, or similar startup tools
• Notary public

What we offer

• Competitive salary and meaningful stock options
• Healthcare, office meals, and snacks
• Direct access to founders and early influence over how the company operates
• A clear path from admin to operations leadership as the company grows

Even if you don't meet every requirement, we'd still love to hear from you. Greatness looks different in everyone, and we need people who make teams move faster.