Sr Operations Manager - Carrier Operations

Blue Truck is a national furniture logistics company that’s reshaping how customers experience delivery of big, important purchases like sofas, beds, and dining tables. We specialize in white-glove, in-home delivery for some of the fastest-growing furniture brands in the country, combining smart logistics with a seamless delivery experience and high-quality support.

Founded by a team with backgrounds at Uber and other high-growth startups, we’re using technology to bring the furniture supply chain into the modern world. We've built a coast-to-coast network and earned a reputation for service that stands out in an industry that doesn’t always get it right. For people who are ambitious, solution-oriented, and excited to be part of a company that's still early in its journey, this is a ground-floor opportunity to shape and build the company.

What you’ll be doing

Blue Truck deliveries are conducted by independent owner operators, businesses with their own truck and MC number, who are the face of the company in front of customers. You’re responsible for overseeing this network.

This role includes carrier recruiting, route coverage and assignment, and most importantly overseeing carrier training and quality. Every Blue Truck carrier is fielding a two man team that delivers high end products into customer homes, where installation skill is paramount. This is an exceptionally hands-on role and requires someone who is willing get their hands dirty and learn the details of the carrier job - including how to assemble specific products that often give us trouble, techniques and best practices for packing a truck, and how to handle and triage a variety of situations in the field.

The expectation is both that you are the company’s hands-on expert, but also capable of scaling people and/or processes as the company scales.

• Carrier recruiting: Qualify carriers who are interested in Blue Truck, bring them through our recruiting process to ensure they have the appropriate skillset, and set them up for first route success. You’ll both implement as well as build on our existing process to ensure that every carrier who hits the road is ready to deliver top notch service.
  
• Route assignment and pricing: Price the routes that are created by our planning team, post the weekly job board, and then ensure every route is covered by getting the right carriers on the right routes. We aim for 80-90% utilization of our active carrier network, meaning you will need to be strategic in offering the right route to the right teams.
  
• Quality and performance feedback: Hold carriers to the highest performance standard, and ensure every delivery is done right. You’re deep in the weeds of what happens on an individual delivery, and not afraid to pick up the phone and have a candid conversation with an underperforming team. Your words are backed up with financial penalties, which you apply judiciously.
  
• Triage and solve on-route issues: Carriers encounter all manner of problems in the field, and you’re the company’s go-to person for solving the hardest ones. Carrier can’t figure out how to put together a bed? You find the instructions and walk through assembly together. Broke down and won’t be back up and running for two days? You’re pulling together a contingency plan and acting as the point person for directing the comms plan with customers who will be rescheduled. Says the customer wants him to take a giant sofa up a staircase “that it absolutely won’t fit”? You walk him through taking measurements, decide together whether to make an attempt, and get the liability waiver form sent over to the customer just in case.
  
• Relationship management: Carrier relationships are a two way street - we hold carriers accountable so that we want to work with them, but they also have to want to work with us. You’re the team “coach” - carriers like working for you and you take their goals and concerns seriously. At the same time, you never shy away from a hard conversation or accountability if someone is falling short.

What qualities and skills make you successful day to day

• You’re a strong operator who owns outcomes: You take personal responsibility for making carrier operations work end to end. When something breaks, you drive it to resolution. Problems that exist in your general vicinity have a way of just getting solved.
  
• You build and improve systems, not just manage them: You design and continuously refine processes. Under your stewardship, recruiting is a consistent motion that reliably delivers high quality carriers capable of doing the job from day 1. You observe, learn, and iterate to make this and every other process you encounter better and more effective.
  
• You communicate clearly and confidently: Carrier operations involves a lot of phone calls and a lot of time spent talking to carriers. You enjoy this, but know how to cut calls short and use your time efficiently. Internal stakeholders love working with you as well.
  
• You balance fairness with accountability: You have a hard edge but also a strong sense of fairness when it comes to carrier management. You make decisions that the company feels good about defending:
  • Blue Truck carrier partners work hard every day, and you need a strong sense of what is a fair market rate to compensate them. At the same time holding partners accountable, including assessing monetary penalties, is a critical part of delivering a great customer experience.
  • Under your stewardship, our partners commit to Blue Truck because they know they will make good, consistent money working with us, but are held to an exacting standard and penalties for failing that standard are as consistent as gravity. You’re the defender of this balance.
    
• You exercise sound judgment in messy, real-world situations: You are a consummate multi-tasker, capable of handling multiple work streams at once while ensuring nothing gets dropped. Truck breakdowns, route schedule changes, coverage issues - you may have several of these in flight at once, and you know how to make sure that each situation is driven to completion with no dropped balls or customers left wondering what’s happening with their delivery.
  
• You’re curious and willing to go deep: You either know the freight and final-mile business or are eager to learn it in depth, from routing and truck loading to product assembly and failure modes.
  
• You thrive in a hands-on, high-ownership environment: This is not a spectator role. You are willing to grind. Blue Truck is a startup; you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, do the work that matters most, and help shape how this function scales as Blue Truck grows.

What types of backgrounds we’re looking for

• You are a business generalist and strong operator. Perhaps you were a consultant early in your career, but your recent experience has been shaped by operationally demanding roles.
  
• If you come from industry, individuals with the following freight or industry backgrounds are particularly interesting to us:
  • Moving company general managers or assistant general managers
  • Logistics operations leaders
  • Management of independent contractor fleets or carrier networks
    
• There’s also a good chance you don’t come from a freight background. We are very interested in anyone with operational experience at a startup, especially tech enabled or physical world services.
  
• You're comfortable with modern software systems and can develop whiz-level fluency in our internal tooling.
  
• Bachelor’s degree is strongly preferred.

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