[Hiring] Senior Paper Operations Specialist @The Knot Worldwide

Role Description

The Senior Paper Operations Specialist is responsible for ensuring operational excellence across order fulfillment, shipping, and printer partnerships. As a critical Individual Contributor (IC), this role serves as the central point of coordination between Customer Experience (CX), Printers, Carriers, and internal product/engineering teams to identify issues, implement reporting and controls, and drive continuous improvements in quality, service levels, and cost efficiency.

Through strong partnership management, data-driven reporting, and proactive issue resolution, you will help deliver a reliable, high-quality customer experience at scale. You will provide essential operational insights, proactively identify risks and opportunities, manage day-to-day financial operations for print vendors, and serve as a trusted operational partner to cross-functional teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Financial & Administrative Operations:
  • Manage new vendor onboarding and collaborate closely with cross-functional partners (Legal, Accounts Payable, Procurement, and Data).
  • Oversee contract execution, renewals, and Purchase Order (PO) creation for vendor partners.
  • Manage monthly and bi-weekly billing processes, royalty tracking (e.g., Netflix, VW), and overall payment tracking.
  • Conduct detailed reviews and tracking of monthly printer invoice fees to ensure accuracy.
• Printer Partnership & Capacity Management:
  • Establish and monitor printer facility capacity and operational risks, escalating issues and implementing remediation plans as needed.
  • Monitor product inventory (including sample kits and envelopes) and coordinate production and replenishments.
  • Partner with printers to support peak and holiday operations, ensuring total readiness and rapid issue resolution during high-volume periods.
  • Support the onboarding of new fulfillment facilities, ensuring strict alignment on shipping standards, processes, and service level agreements (SLAs).
  • Manage special order needs and custom requests (e.g., Marketing requests).
• Shipping & Carrier Management:
  • Manage day-to-day shipping carrier relationships (including Core Trust and FedEx), serving as the primary point of contact for service-level issues and escalations.
  • Project management across CX, Product, Engineering, and Business teams when shipping escalations occur to mitigate negative impacts on the customer experience.
  • Oversee the submission, tracking, and resolution of shipping claims for damaged, late, or lost orders; identify patterns to influence operational changes.
  • Track and analyze shipping costs continuously to identify risks, trends, and financial optimization opportunities.
• Customer Experience & Order Issue Management:
  • Partner closely with Customer Experience (CX) and Printers to investigate, resolve, and prevent recurring order issues.
  • Drive recommendations for on-site, product development, and printer optimizations to continuously enhance the customer experience based on direct findings.
  • Conduct regular on-site and system-based quality controls to ensure the accuracy of information, ease of use, and overall functionality of the shipping experience.
  • Review Voice of Customer (VOC) feedback systematically to understand customer challenges and identify recurring shipping/fulfillment pain points.
• UAT, Testing & Cross-Functional Enablement:
  • Facilitate the preparation and execution of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) between external printer partners and internal engineering teams.
  • Communicate testing plans, timelines, required resources, and payload requirements clearly to all stakeholders.
  • Establish comprehensive test plans for new features and products, ensuring appropriate participation and coverage across teams.
  • Act as the primary liaison between external printer partners and internal teams to ensure smooth testing, feedback collection, and rapid issue resolution.
  • Establish and maintain operational controls, escalation frameworks, and decision criteria to proactively manage fulfillment, shipping, and partner risks.
  • Identify systemic operational gaps and lead root-cause analyses that drive durable, cross-functional solutions rather than temporary fixes.
  • Anticipate downstream customer, cost, and capacity impacts of product changes, partner shifts, or volume fluctuations, and raise risks early to leadership.
• Reporting, Analytics & Insights:
  • Own reporting and analysis related to order issues, ship time performance, and non-billable costs (working alongside reporting support to surface trends and inform improvements).
  • Develop reprint reporting to better understand customer issues, print quality, and discrepancies.
  • Translate operational insights into clear, actionable recommendations that influence roadmaps, prioritization, and release readiness.
  • Frame data-driven narratives that help leaders understand tradeoffs and make informed decisions, ensuring reporting answers the "why" and "what next," rather than just the "what happened."

Qualifications

• 5–7 years of progressive experience in e-commerce operations, fulfillment, print production, supply chain, carrier management, or a related operational function, ideally in a Senior IC capacity.
• Proven experience managing external vendors and operational partners, including printers, suppliers, and/or carriers.
• Hands-on experience with vendor onboarding, invoice reconciliation, purchase orders, contract renewals, billing, and vendor cost analysis.
• Strong proficiency in Excel/Google Sheets and operational reporting, with the ability to analyze large datasets, identify trends and root causes, and translate findings into clear recommendations.
• Strong understanding of the end-to-end e-commerce order lifecycle, including production, fulfillment, shipping, delivery, reprints, claims, and order exceptions.
• Experience partnering with Product and Engineering teams on UAT, integrations, system changes, and operational troubleshooting.
• Demonstrated ability to independently manage complex, cross-functional projects; establish operational controls; conduct root-cause analyses; and implement sustainable process improvements.
• Proven ability to work effectively across CX, Product, Engineering, Finance, Legal, Accounting, Merchandising, Design, and offshore/global teams.
• Experience in print production, paper products, custom fulfillment, or e-commerce supply chain is highly preferred.

Requirements

• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills are essential.

Benefits

• Starting pay is determined based on a combination of factors which may include location/market, education, experience, skills, and other qualifications of the successful candidate.
• Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base hourly rate, monthly rate, or annual salary only, and do not include bonus, commissions, equity or sales incentives, if applicable.
• We also offer benefits to eligible employees including medical, dental, retirement, and generous leave policies.
• Annual salary range: $62,000 — $117,521 USD.