Director of Operations

Join us. We’re still building.

Director of Operations | Hybrid Remote / Fitzrovia, London | Reports to: Chief Operating OfficerWe make bags and accessories for the people building the future. Engineers, founders, designers, makers. People in the arena, doing the work, often without proof. We’re building the future too, in our own way.

Fifteen years in. Fourteen times bigger in the last five. B Corp certified. Wirecutter’s pick for best laptop backpack. The work we do has substance.

Reporting to our COO, you’re the person who makes sure the thing we promised actually shows up, and shows up well, across every channel we sell through. You own the decisions and relationships that keep product moving and available, and that protect what it costs us to get there.

You own the delivery of the operational strategy behind it, and you’re the COO’s closest partner in making operations sharper and ready for the scale that’s coming.

This is a broad role. We run an omnichannel business, and operations touches all of it: freight and logistics, inbound and inventory planning, ecommerce and marketplace fulfilment including Amazon FBA, wholesale and retail, international distribution, and customer service. We are looking for someone comfortable operating across a spectrum of workstreams.

You’ll work with and on a small team. You may have one to two direct reports. This is a strategic role and a hands-on one in equal measure. You’ll help lead the function, own how the plan actually gets delivered, and you’ll also do the work.

We expect operations to be built with AI at its core. This is not a nice-to-have. We are a small team running a business that keeps getting bigger, and the way we stay small and sharp is by constantly asking how we work smarter with less. We want someone who does this by instinct, and who has actually done it, not just talked about it.

If you take pride in working for a purpose-led brand and you want to be part of something that’s growing, we’d love to talk.

What You’ll DoOwn the relationships that keep product moving: factories and suppliers, freight and 3PL partners, and international distributors. Capacity, lead times, quality standards and commercial terms.

Own inventory planning across channels: DTC, wholesale, retail, marketplaces including Amazon FBA, and international. How much we buy, when, and where it goes.

Run the inbound, logistics and distribution function so product arrives where it needs to be, on time and in full.

Help lead customer experience, so what customers actually feel, from delays to quality to complaints, goes straight back into how we source and how we buy.

Build the operational systems, reporting and AI that let a small team run a much bigger business, and give us a clear, reliable view of inventory health, partner performance and demand.

Own the day-to-day balancing of demand against factory capacity, and track production timelines closely, using factory WIP reports to catch potential freight delays before they happen.

Own the delivery of the operational strategy the COO sets, build the next version of how operations runs, and bring operations into the company planning that supports our path to profitability.

Lead a small team, and raise the people around you as you go.

Who You Are

• Five or more years of operational experience across a physical goods, omnichannel business.
• You have worked across several of: freight and logistics, inventory planning, inbound, ecommerce, marketplaces including Amazon FBA, wholesale, retail, international distribution and customer service.
• You have owned factory and supplier relationships firsthand, and run inventory planning at a DTC omnichannel brand somewhere in the $5M to $40M range.
• You know how a business like ours actually works, and how to make it work better.
• Strategically minded, and a people manager.
• You turn strategy into delivery, hold the standards, build systems and relationships that last, and you move from the plan to the detail without dropping either.A genuine second in command.
• You take operational load off the COO, own it end to end, and think a step ahead of where the business is going.AI-first by instinct.
• You are always looking for how to work smarter with less, and you have done it, not just talked about it.
• At home in a commercial negotiation.
• You’ve owned the terms, not just the relationship.
• Based in or able to work from London, close to our Fitzrovia HQ.Why Troubadour
• We’ve grown fourteen times bigger in the last five years.
• The next phase is bigger still, and everyone we hire has a hand in shaping it.
• We’re a small team.
• Curious.
• Hands-on. We care about doing things well, and about the people doing them.
• High standards without high drama.
• We disagree out loud.
• We back each other up. The people who thrive here treat the work seriously and themselves a little less so.
• Our headquarters is in Fitzrovia, London, alongside our store on Beak Street.
• We have an office in Boston.
• The rest of the team works remotely, and we get together whenever we can.
• We look after our people properly.
• The basics and more.

How To Apply

Send your CV and a short note on why this role fits.