Resource Operations Manager

Big Spaceship; New York (NY); On-site; USD 80,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Big Spaceship seeks a NY-based Resource Operations Manager to be the operational backbone of staffing, contracting, tracking and paying freelancers. You’ll own the end-to-end process—from the first freelancer conversation through final invoice and offboarding—using our flexible talent bench to scale the work in front of us.

In a fast-paced agency environment, you’ll manage sourcing, vendor relations, budgets, timesheets and systems.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in agency operations or resourcing.
• Experience with resource management, budgets and vendor contracts.
• Proficiency in Excel and Google Sheets; comfort with AI tools.

Responsibilities

• Maintain a vetted freelance talent bench across creative, production, design, studio, account, strategy and program management.
• Run outreach quickly to form project teams within days, collecting availability and rates.
• Negotiate rates against market benchmarks and past engagements.
• Manage freelance intake from inquiry to engagement.
• Collaborate with project leads and finance to approve staffing requests within budget.
• Ensure engagements are accurate and fall within budget; match to contracting paths.
• Own day-to-day relationships with contractor-of-record and vendor partners: contracts, SOWs, timesheets, offboarding.
• Explain contracting arrangements to freelancers: paperwork, hours, and pay.
• Maintain freelancer agreement templates and ensure sign-off for engagements.
• Keep freelancer tracker and end-date reminders; enable smooth hand-offs to IT/ops.
• Provide resourcing support: staff plans, timesheet workflows, data transfers between systems.
• Produce recurring reports on time-off and freelance spend.
• Document processes and optimize workflows; build AI-assisted components.
• Manage expenses and budgets; coordinate T&E budgets with project teams.

Skills

Resourcing

Agency operations

Contract management

Budget management

Communication

AI tools

Tools

Excel

Google Sheets

AI tools

Job description

At Big Spaceship, we're explorers, not settlers. We partner with ambitious brands ready to venture into new territory, push creative boundaries, and lead rather than follow.

We're a full-service creative shop built for brands that want to break new ground. Our diverse team of entrepreneurial spirits, creative minds, and makers brings bold ideas to life for some of the world's most innovative and culturally connected brands. If you thrive on exploration, creative risk-taking, and charting new paths, you belong here.

We are looking for a NY-based Resource Operations Manager to be the operational backbone of how our work gets staffed, contracted, tracked and paid for. Our flexible talent bench is how we scale to the work in front of us, and this role owns it end to end, from the first conversation with a freelancer through the final invoice and offboarding.

Roles + Responsibilities

Freelance sourcing and recruitment

• Maintain a vetted bench of freelance talent across creative, production, design, studio, account, strategy and program management, working alongside internal recruiter and external staffing agencies.
• Run outreach quickly and on demand when a project or pitch needs a team within days, collecting availability, rate and business status in a single pass.
• Negotiate rates against market benchmarks and past engagements.
• Manage the freelance intake process and the pipeline from first inquiry to engagement.

• Partner with project leads and finance to turn staffing requests into clear, well-supported approvals.
• Make sure each engagement is accurate and within budget before it moves forward.
• Match each engagement to the right contracting path.

Contractor-of-record and vendor management

• Own day-to-day relationships with contractor-of-record and vendor partners: contract and SOW setup, amendments, timesheet approval and offboarding.
• Explain contracting arrangements to freelancers clearly: why the paperwork works as it does, how they log hours and how they get paid.

• Maintain the freelancer agreement template, complete it accurately for each engagement and get it signed.

• Keep the freelance tracker, resourcing system profiles, end-date reminders and hand-offs to IT and operations current, so anyone can ask who is active, on what, until when and at what cost, and get one true answer.

Ad hoc operations and delivery support

The freelance bench is the anchor, but an operations team is asked for whatever the agency needs next. Expect a share of the week to go to work like this:

• Resourcing support: staff plans, timesheet workflows, and moving project and employee data between systems.
• Recurring reporting: time-off tracking and freelance spend against contract values
• Process: document how work actually gets done, find the steps that cost the most time, and simplify them. Where an AI-assisted workflow can carry the repetitive parts, build it, maintain it and teach others to use it.
• Expense management: administer the expense/production system, allocate billable and non-billable T&E budgets with project teams, and reconcile monthly expenses with finance and client project teams.

• 5+ years in agency operations or resourcing. Agency experience required.
• Sound judgment and diplomacy in negotiating rates and managing freelancer relationships.
• A careful reader of contracts.
• Comfortable with numbers, including contract values, rate conversions and working-day counts.
• Experience with resource management and timesheet platforms, contractor-management platforms and project tracking tools, plus strong Excel and Google Sheets skills.
• Experience managing budgets and reconciling expenses with finance.
• Clear, warm written communication.
• Self-directed, able to work from a brief and see tasks through.
• Discretion with confidential information such as rates and contracts.Fluent with AI tools as a daily practice, and curious about where they make the work better.
• NYC-based.

The salary band for this role is $80,000 - $90,000. Where a prospective new hire's base salary will fall within this band depends on several factors including their qualifications and experience, the skill level required in the role, market rates, and the salaries of existing crew members at Big Spaceship within the same role to maintain equity.