[Hiring] Senior Paper Operations Specialist @The Knot

Role Description

The Senior Paper Operations Specialist is responsible for ensuring operational excellence across order fulfillment, shipping, and printer partnerships. 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.
• 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.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and retirement benefits.
• Generous leave policies.

Work Model

This role is fully remote and not tied to any specific office location. While there are no regular in-office requirements, we encourage our remote team members to gather intentionally for key company and team events to stay connected and engaged.