Workplace and Studio Operations Lead

Product.ai; Santa Monica (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% medical/dental/vision coverage

Ownership and profit-share programs

Paid on-site work trials

Job summary

Product.ai seeks an on-site Operations Owner to lead the Santa Monica headquarters and Studio procurement operations. You will manage space readiness, AV/IT, onboarding for new hires, and end-to-end facility routines, reporting to the Head of Core Operations.

You will coordinate with the Creative Director on studio production logistics, vendor contracts, and SOPs in Cortex, ensuring day‑to‑day operations run smoothly and repeatedly without supervision.

Qualifications

• Experience running physical environments or production operations.
• Ability to write clear runbooks and checklists.
• Willingness to work 100% on-site in Santa Monica.

Responsibilities

• The Santa Monica workspace end to end: space readiness, AV/IT, office setup, building coordination.
• Studio procurement, inventory, and vendor logistics for the Product.ai Studio.
• Onboarding, trial visits, and end-to-end event production scheduling and execution.
• Vendor contracts and canonical SOPs maintained in Cortex.

Skills

Facility management

Vendor negotiations

Operational planning

Procurement

On-site leadership

Process documentation

Job description

Every operator at Product.ai works inside Cortex, our shared AI brain across more than 8,600 internal documents, and directs AI agents in Claude Code to ship in hours what used to take weeks.

Role Overview

Compensation $120k - $150k

Own the physical company and our product-testing studio. You will run our Santa Monica headquarters and Studio procurement operations like a product, reporting directly to our Head of Core Operations.

Product.ai is the verified truth layer for shopping: the intelligence that tells you what is actually true about a product, including when not to buy. SimplyCodes is our community-verified savings engine generating over $20M a year in revenue. Profitable. Bootstrapped. No outside investors. No board. Fewer than twenty operators outbuilding companies 10x our size.

Why This Role Exists

Every operator at Product.ai works inside Cortex, our shared AI brain across more than 8,600 internal documents, and directs AI agents in Claude Code to ship in hours what used to take weeks.

Our physical headquarters in Santa Monica (12100 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 950), our physical product-testing Studio, and our day-to-day workspace operations need an on-site owner who moves at that exact same tempo. Builders fly in for paid work trials. The Studio orders, tracks, and stages physical hardware and consumer products for verification shoots. Conference rooms, AV setups, vendor contracts, daily porter standards, and new-hire onboarding all run through this space.

This is a high‑agency builder seat reporting to our Head of Core Operations for a sharp operations generalist who loves making both the physical room and the back‑office machinery run like clockwork, and who uses AI agents to automate every repeatable workflow they touch.

The System You'll Need to Model

• Workspace, executive office, and IT/AV readiness. Our 10,000 sq ft Santa Monica headquarters is the first physical proof of how we operate. Conference room TVs and Google Meet hardware, executive office setup, daily porter and housekeeping standards, kitchen and supply par levels, and preventive maintenance all run on explicit checklists and service levels rather than memory.
• Studio procurement and production operations. Partnering with our Creative Director and Head of Core Operations to run the physical logistics of the Product.ai Studio: supplier negotiations, equipment and product ordering, receiving, inventory organization, and shoot‑day readiness.
• Onboarding logistics as day‑one readiness. A new hire or visiting trial builder must be productive on day one: equipment provisioned, building access and badge ready, desk staged, and travel logistics handled cleanly.
• Event production as repeatable formats. Team days, partner sessions, and community gatherings with a real run‑of‑show, catering, AV checks, setup and reset, turning what worked into a playbook the next event inherits.
• AI‑native back‑office execution. The whole company runs on Cortex. You will manage vendor lifecycles, inventory, purchasing schedules, and canonical SOPs inside governed AI sessions so repeatable logistics run on automation while judgment calls stay yours.

If reading that energizes you, keep going. If it feels overwhelming or underspecified, this isn't the right fit.

What You Will Own

• The Santa Monica workspace end to end. Suite 950 space readiness, conference room AV and IT hardware, executive office setup, daily porter and kitchen standards, supplies, and building management coordination.
• Studio procurement, inventory, and vendor logistics. Sourcing, ordering, receiving, and tracking products, camera/lighting hardware, and studio supplies so creative and verification shoots never wait on missing gear.
• Onboarding, trial visits, and event production. Day‑one equipment, desk, and access readiness for new hires and paid‑trial builders, plus end‑to‑end event logistics for team days and hosted sessions.
• Vendor contracts and canonical SOPs. Managing day‑to‑day facility and Studio vendors, auditing recurring office spend, and maintaining self‑explanatory standard operating procedures in Cortex.

Who You Are

You independently form a working model of how a space and a supply chain serve the people in them, and when something breaks, you fix the system, not just the instance. You have zero ego about altitude: you can negotiate a supplier contract and build an AI workflow in the morning, then walk the floor, test conference room AV, and organize Studio hardware in the afternoon.

You have run a physical environment or production operation where the details had to work every day (an office, a studio, a hospitality floor, an event series, or early‑stage startup operations desk) and you made it work through systems rather than stamina. You write clearly (runbooks, checklists, opening and closing procedures, vendor briefs) because clear writing is evidence of clear thought.

Who this isn't for. This role is wrong if you want remote or hybrid work: it is 100% in‑person, five days a week in Santa Monica. It is wrong if you wait to be handed a daily task list, or if you treat physical workspace and Studio logistics as someone else's job. You will thrive here if you are a hungry, detail‑obsessed systematizer who takes pride in a headquarters and Studio that run effortlessly.

How We Evaluate

• Async video screen. Brief and self‑recorded, about 15 minutes total, done whenever works for you.
• Call with our Head of Core Operations. A focused conversation on how you run physical spaces, vendor logistics, and operational checklists.
• Conversation with the founder. Chemistry, judgment, and how you model the system above.
• Paid work trial. One to two weeks, paid, on‑site in our Santa Monica headquarters running real workspace and Studio deliverables. We both learn more in a real working trial than hours of interviews.

Compensation & Ownership

Total first‑year compensation: $120,000 - $150,000 (base + performance‑based ownership and profit‑share programs). Base salary: $85,000 - $110,000.

• eligibility for the company's ownership and profit‑share programs
• 100% medical/dental/vision coverage
• an effectively unlimited AI token budget to automate your workflows

Based in Santa Monica, Los Angeles (12100 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 950), in person, five days a week.

Selection Protocol

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01 Read: Culture Guide (Required)

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