[Hiring] Senior Operations Manager for Travel Agency @Purely Optimal Inc.

Role Description

Travel Hack is a membership-based online travel platform. Our members join a closed user group and unlock private rates on millions of hotels and vacation rentals: pricing the open market does not show. We are a Delaware corporation with a small senior team of operators, engineers, and commercial leads, and we are in launch phase right now. The systems you help build in your first months will run the company for years. This is not a big-company ops seat with a playbook handed to you. You will help write the playbook.

What You Will Own

• Vendor research and comparison memos. Scope options, compare vendors, recommend one, and show your work.
• Vendor and partner coordination. Follow-ups, applications, and verification requirements across our booking-engine vendor, payment providers, phone system, and support partners. You keep every thread warm and every loop closing.
• Domain and DNS coordination. Records, verifications, and handovers between our registrar and the dev team.
• App store administration. Developer account setup, business registrations, and verification requirements for the two major app stores.
• Email marketing operations. Flow structure and segmentation inside our email platform (welcome, abandoned-cart, and price-drop journeys). Copy and design stay with the marketing lane; the plumbing is yours.
• Contract and hiring admin. Engagement paperwork, hiring support, and brand asset management.
• Quality assurance passes on member-facing builds and site testing support.
• A daily written end-of-day report. Fixed structure, bullets only, every claim backed by a link or screenshot. This is how leadership sees your work, so treat it as a first-class deliverable.

Your First 90 Days

• Days 1 to 30: Your daily report lands on time, every working day, and reads clean. You have mapped our vendor landscape and taken over active follow-up threads without dropping one.
• Days 31 to 60: You have shipped at least two vendor comparison memos that led to a decision. Domain, app store, and email-platform admin run through you. Nothing in your lane surprises your manager.
• Days 61 to 90: You spot gaps before they are pointed out, and your recommendations get approved with fewer edits. You are trusted with more, because you showed evidence for everything you claimed.

How We Work

• Spot gaps, then bring a move. We want people who notice the missing owner, the missing deadline, the missing escalation path, and flag it with a recommended fix attached. Raising a problem without a proposed next step is half a job.
• Proactive by default. If a task completes and the next step is obvious, start it. Ask first when the action is irreversible, expensive, or externally visible.
• Evidence over claims. Nothing is reported as delivered without confirmation from the outside world. This rule does not bend.
• Draft, then approve. Anything a vendor, partner, or member could see goes to your manager first. Your deliverable is a recommendation ready for review.
• Written by default, sync on Thursdays. Work lives in Asana with clear owners and due dates. You send a structured written report at the end of every working day, and once a week we hold an operations huddle, camera on.
• Absorb load, do not route it up. Escalate what genuinely needs leadership. Everything else, you handle and report.
• No weekends. We do not work Saturdays or Sundays and we do not ask you to. Deadlines that fall on a weekend move.
• Direct communication. Feedback here is sharp, specific, and aimed at the work. If you want a manager who tells you exactly where the bar is, you will like it here.

How to Apply

• Begin your cover letter application with the word "Tailwind" as the very first word of your cover note. This is how we know you read the post.
• Your CV (PDF preferred).
• A two-minute video. One take, no script, no edits, camera on. A phone is fine. We are not assessing production quality, and a polished edit counts against you rather than for you. Two minutes is a hard ceiling. Cover three things:
  • (1) Who you are, in about twenty seconds. Not your career history, we have your CV. What you are actually like to work with.
  • (2) A time someone told you your work was wrong, or not good enough. What they said, what you did next, and what you would do differently now.
  • (3) One question you would ask in your first week that would tell you the most about how this business really runs.
• On verification: shortlisted candidates sign an NDA before deep-dive interviews, and the final candidate completes identity verification before onboarding. This role carries access to sensitive systems, and we hire accordingly.

Must-Haves

• 4+ years in operations, project coordination, or executive operations at a startup or lean company.
• Excellent written English. Most of your output is written: memos, reports, vendor emails. Your writing is your interface.
• Full availability Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 18:00 Central European Time (one-hour lunch).
• Written-first discipline. Work lives in a task manager (we use Asana), decisions get written down, and you make progress without waiting for a meeting.
• Evidence habit. Done means shown: a link, a screenshot, a confirmation. A draft is a draft.
• Loop-closing instinct. You track open items until they are externally confirmed, and you never let a thread silently die.
• Discretion. You will see vendor terms, pricing logic, and pre-launch plans. You keep them inside the building, and you can point to a track record of doing exactly that.

Nice-to-Haves

• Travel industry or online travel agency experience.
• Hands-on time with an email marketing platform (flows, segments, deliverability basics).
• DNS and domain management basics.
• App store developer account administration (either major platform).
• Experience taking a product through launch.

Tools & Skills

• Vendor Management
• Written English
• Asana
• Email Marketing Ops
• DNS & Domains
• App Store Admin
• QA & Testing
• Research Memos

Compensation & Terms

• Compensation: USD 850 to 1,000 per month, depending on experience. Fixed monthly retainer, plus discretionary performance bonuses.
• Engagement: Freelance basis, invoiced monthly. The role itself is full-time and ongoing, not project work.
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 18:00 CET, one-hour lunch. Fully remote.
• Leave: 20 earned days per year plus 8 national holidays of your country of residence.
• Probation: First 6 months.
• Paperwork: Offer letter, engagement contract, and NDA are signed together. Travel Hack Ventures Inc. is a Delaware corporation.