Senior Director, Central Operations

About this role

Who We Are

At Justworks, you’ll enjoy a welcoming and casual environment, great benefits, wellness program offerings, company retreats, and the ability to interact with and learn from leaders in the startup community. We work hard and care about our most prized asset - our people.

We’re helping businesses get off the ground by enabling them to focus on running their business. We solve HR issues. We’re data-driven and never stop iterating. If you’d like to work in a supportive, entrepreneurial environment, are interested in building something meaningful and having fun while doing it, we’d love to hear from you.

We're united by shared goals and shared motivations at Justworks. These are best summed up in our company values, which are reflected in our product and in our team.

Our Values

If this sounds like you, you’ll fit right in.

Who You Are

You're an operations leader who sees this moment in operations for what it is: a rare inflection point where AI and automation are reshaping what's possible, and where the leaders who move first will define the next generation of operational excellence. You bring deep expertise in standards, systems, and process design, paired with the vision to imagine what operations can become and the discipline to get there. You've built operational infrastructure before: the SOPs, controls, systems, KPI frameworks, and governance cadences that turn a high-performing team into a high-performing organization. You're a builder at heart, energized by creating structure where there isn't any, and you lead teams through ambiguity and change with conviction and clarity. You influence across the organization, earning trust, driving adoption, and making change stick even where you don't have direct authority. You're also a natural connector between Operations and the partners across Technology, Customer Success, Revenue, and Finance who are critical to making the company's transformation agenda real.

Your Success Profile

As the Senior Director of Central Operations, you will lead the transformation of our Operations organization at one of the most exciting moments in the function's history. You will build the operational backbone that sets the standards, systems, and capabilities for how the organization works, and you will lead the AI and automation agenda that will fundamentally reshape how operations gets done. This is a rare opportunity to stand up a centralized function from the ground up, shape its vision, and drive change that will be felt across every team in Operations.

You will own a portfolio of centralized functions including operational excellence, data and KPIs, third-party systems, AI and automation transformation, and learning and development. You will elevate Central Operations as the strategic engine that raises the performance bar across the entire organization and positions Operations as a competitive advantage for the business.

LEAD THE TRANSFORMATION AND AUTOMATION AGENDA

• Lead the Operations transformation agenda at a pivotal moment, with a particular focus on identifying, prioritizing, and deploying AI and automation solutions that fundamentally reshape how the organization operates.

• Reimagine long-standing workflows and unlock step-change improvements in efficiency, quality, and speed.

• Serve as the primary Operations liaison for company-wide automation and AI initiatives, partnering with Technology, Customer Success, Revenue, and Finance to identify shared opportunities, align on priorities, and ensure that what gets built reflects operational realities and scales across functions.

• Build a change management muscle within the org to ensure transformation sticks, focusing on how teams embrace and adopt change, not only what gets shipped.

BUILD AND LEAD THE CENTRAL OPERATIONS TEAM

• Build, develop, and retain a lean, high-performing team, setting a high bar for excellence and creating an environment where people take ownership and do their best work.

• Set a clear strategic vision, aligning the team around shared goals and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

DRIVE OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION

• Define and maintain the standards framework for the Operations org, including SOPs, controls, and quality benchmarks, ensuring consistency and accountability across all ops teams.

• Drive continuous process improvement, identifying and closing gaps between how work is designed and how it gets done in practice.

• Build and manage a governance cadence that keeps standards current as the business evolves.

OWN DATA, KPIs, AND OPERATIONAL REPORTING

• Own the KPI framework for Operations, including metric definitions, ownership, and target-setting in partnership with ops leadership.

• Ensure the org has timely, reliable, and actionable reporting, overseeing dashboards and data quality across operational functions.

• Serve as the authoritative source for how Operations measures success.

GOVERN SYSTEMS AND TOOLS

• Own the Operations tool stack, including configuration, governance, vendor relationships, and license management across third-party platforms.

• Ensure tooling reflects and reinforces the processes the team standardizes, and that changes in process are reflected in how tools are configured.

• Evaluate and introduce new tools in partnership with IT and Engineering as the org's needs evolve.

BUILD THE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION

• Own L&D for the Operations organization, including onboarding, skills development, manager training, and the capability programs needed to support transformation initiatives.

• Ensure that as tools and processes evolve, the team's skills evolve with them, preparing the org for a future where AI and automation are embedded in how work gets done.

• Build scalable L&D infrastructure rather than one-off programs.

How You Will Do Your Work

As Senior Director of Central Operations, how results are achieved is as important as what you achieve.

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