Technical Operations Team Lead

CHAOS Industries; El Segundo (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401k matching

Free daily lunch

No meeting Fridays

Relocation assistance

Job summary

CHAOS Industries is seeking a hands-on Technical Operations Team Lead to mentor engineers, scale deployments, and craft SOPs for repeatable field success.

You will deploy with teams, diagnose complex hardware and software issues, and act as the senior escalation point while traveling up to 25% to customer sites. A strong Linux background and leadership experience are essential.

Qualifications

• Degree in Engineering, CS, Physics, or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Experience leading technical teams in field engineering or technical operations.
• Deep Linux proficiency and system-level debugging skills.
• Proven track record deploying hardware/software deployments at customers.

Responsibilities

• Manage, mentor, and develop Technical Operations Engineers through onboarding and performance feedback.
• Build SOPs, runbooks, escalation processes, and diagnostics for repeatable deployments.
• Deploy with your team—integrate CHAOS systems with customer infrastructure and debug edge issues.
• Serve as senior escalation point for hardware, software, and networking issues; lead incident response.
• Advise internal and customer teams on operational use and best practices.
• Capture operational feedback and partner with engineering to drive reliability and product improvements.
• Travel up to 25% to customer and test sites for deployments and support.

Skills

Linux

SSH

Networking

System debugging

Python

Bash

Team leadership

Field engineering

Travel readiness

Education

Engineering, Computer Science, Physics or related field

Tools

Docker

Azure

AWS

SRE tooling

Job description

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats.

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com .

Role Overview

Technical Operations at CHAOS sits at the intersection of technology and real-world mission environments — integrating hardware and software, diagnosing complex system issues, and ensuring CHAOS systems operate flawlessly in the field.

As Technical Operations Team Lead, you will manage, mentor, and develop a team of Technical Operations Engineers while remaining hands‑on in the field. You will help scale how the mission team deploys by building the SOPs, support practices, and technical standards that make deployments repeatable.

Responsibilities:

• Manage, mentor, and develop Technical Operations Engineers through onboarding, coaching, and performance feedback.
• Help build the SOPs, runbooks, escalation processes, and diagnostics that make deployments and support repeatable.
• Deploy alongside your team — integrating CHAOS systems with customer infrastructure and debugging complex edge issues.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for complex hardware, software, and networking issues, leading incident response and root‑cause analysis.
• Advise internal and customer teams on operational use and best practices, and communicate technical status to key customers.
• Capture operational feedback and partner with engineering to drive reliability and product improvements.
• Travel (typically up to 25%) to customer and test sites for deployments, escalations, and mission support.

Minimum Requirements

• Strong technical foundation with a degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or related field — or equivalent hands‑on experience.
• Proven experience leading technical teams in field engineering, technical operations, systems integration, or similar — as a formal manager or established team lead.
• Deep familiarity with Linux environments; comfortable with SSH, networking tools, and system‑level debugging.
• Track record of delivering complex hardware/software deployments in customer environments.
• Experience integrating or maintaining hardware or sensor systems, with an understanding of networking protocols and hardware interfaces.
• Proficiency in at least one scripting or programming language (Python, Bash, or similar).
• Excellent communication skills — able to represent technical operations to customers, executives, and engineers with clarity and composure.
• Willingness and enthusiasm for travel and on‑site technical work.

Preferred Requirements:

• Experience building a team or function from an early stage — defining processes and scaling operations.
• Background in defense, aerospace, or other mission‑critical environments; experience working directly with military or government operational users.
• Understanding of RF systems, SDRs, or radar technologies.
• Familiarity with telemetry, data integration, or IoT‑style architectures, and with cloud and edge computing environments (Docker, Azure, AWS, etc.).
• Active US security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one.

Why CHAOS?

• Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
• Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
• Our Perks: Free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
• Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre‑IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses
• Team Growth: 350 employees and counting across 5 global offices

Salary Range: $200,000 - $250,000

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.