Operations Lead
Citation is building a workspace for people who turn research into something worth reading. We bring sources, notes, drafts and references together so a writer can follow an idea from the material that inspired it to the document they share. Our work serves the everyday decisions behind a paper, an article, a report or a longer research project.
We care about the connections between those decisions. Finding a source is only useful when its details can be reviewed. An AI suggestion needs to fit the writer’s intention and remain theirs to accept or reject. A finished document should carry its references with it. We want the product to make those steps easier to understand while leaving room for the judgment that good writing requires.
As a startup, we value people who can follow a problem across disciplines and stay close to the person using the result. A clear explanation, a dependable interaction and a thoughtful technical decision all contribute to the same experience. Joining Citation means helping shape both the product and the way we build it, with care for the details and a willingness to learn from the work.
The opportunity
Citation is building a connected place for research, writing and references. The product depends on careful decisions about how we use our time, support contributors and keep important commitments visible. We are looking for an Operations Lead who can turn that attention into practical systems that help a growing startup work with clarity.
This is a role for someone who enjoys making complicated work easier to coordinate. You might investigate a recurring vendor cost, improve the way a new contributor gets access or help turn an unclear project into a sequence of decisions with named owners. The common thread is understanding the actual need, choosing a proportionate process and following through until the process works for the people using it.
You will work close to the people making product and company decisions. We want an operator who can be trusted with detail and uncertainty, who can distinguish a missing decision from a missing document and who knows when a matter needs specialist advice. The aim is a company that can move thoughtfully because responsibilities, information and commitments are easier to understand.
What you’ll work on
- Create a clear operating rhythm for important commitments and decisions. Help owners define the intended outcome, the next meaningful step and any dependency that could prevent progress, then keep follow through visible without turning every task into a meeting.
- Improve the practical experience of joining and contributing to Citation. Coordinate agreed access, equipment, documentation and introductions, and make changes in responsibilities or departures equally clear so that people and information are handled with care.
- Maintain a useful view of recurring costs and vendor commitments. Work with the relevant owners to understand what a service supports, when a decision is due and where duplication or unclear ownership is creating avoidable expense.
- Support company planning with accurate, understandable information. Gather the context behind a decision, document assumptions and open questions, and make it easier for product, engineering and growth contributors to understand the resources available for their work.
- Coordinate administrative and specialist work with clear boundaries. Prepare organized information for accounting, legal or other qualified advisers, track the resulting actions and ensure the people responsible have enough context to carry them out.
- Build lightweight processes for recurring work such as purchasing, approvals, access reviews and internal documentation. Start with the actual source of confusion, test the process with the people using it and remove steps that do not improve reliability or accountability.
- Handle sensitive operational information carefully. Use appropriate access, keep records accurate and help the team recognize when a request involves personal information, confidential agreements or a decision that belongs with a specific owner.
What you’ll bring
- You have owned operational work in a startup, a growing organization or another environment where responsibilities changed as needs became clearer. You can describe a process you built, why it was needed and how you knew it helped.
- You are comfortable working with budgets, spreadsheets and recurring commitments. You can reconcile inconsistent information, explain the assumptions behind a number and identify when a financial question requires an accountant or another specialist.
- You have strong written communication and a structured approach to coordination. Your documents make the owner, decision and next action easy to find, and you can communicate a problem without obscuring it in status language.
- You can manage work that crosses different disciplines. You ask enough questions to understand the context, recognize dependencies early and follow up in a way that helps people complete a commitment rather than simply acknowledge a reminder.
- You handle confidential information with judgment. You understand that access should match the task, that sensitive records need careful treatment and that uncertainty about a policy or obligation should be resolved with the appropriate expert.
- You can balance initiative with proportion. You are willing to investigate an unfamiliar issue, make a sensible first improvement and revisit the approach when the company’s needs change, without building a complicated system ahead of a real problem.
Useful, but not required
- Experience supporting hiring, contributor onboarding or vendor management would help you improve the operational moments that shape a person’s first experience with the company.
- Experience using automation to reduce repetitive administrative work would be useful, especially when you can explain the controls, exceptions and human review needed to keep it dependable.
- Familiarity with software businesses or teams working across locations would help you understand recurring tools, access requirements and the coordination needs of product development.
Your first few months
- Start by understanding how Citation currently makes decisions and coordinates commitments. Map the important recurring work, its owners and the information they rely on. Identify a small number of gaps where clearer ownership or a simpler process would immediately help.
- Take one operational improvement through to regular use, such as contributor onboarding or the review of recurring vendor commitments. Agree on the desired outcome, test the process with its users and document the exceptions that require a person to make a decision.
- Build a shared view of the next important commitments and resource decisions. Help owners anticipate deadlines and dependencies, review whether the new processes are being used and propose the next improvements based on observed friction rather than a generic operations checklist.
Who you’ll work with
You will work closely with the founder and the people responsible for product, engineering, growth and customer experience. Your role is to make the operational context around their work easier to understand, bring unanswered questions into view and help the right person make a decision with the information they need.
You will also coordinate with external providers and qualified advisers where appropriate. Prepare concise context, keep agreements and actions discoverable and translate the resulting requirements into work with clear ownership. Good operations should leave people with more attention for the product and the people using it.
What good work looks like
- Important commitments have clear owners and next steps, and the team can see upcoming decisions before they become urgent interruptions.
- Recurring operational work becomes easier to complete accurately, with proportionate processes that people understand and continue to use.
- The company has a more dependable view of its resources and obligations, and sensitive information is handled with care and appropriate access.
How we work
We start with a concrete user problem and choose a focused piece of work that can make it better. Important decisions should be understandable in writing, with the relevant context, tradeoffs and open questions available to the people contributing. We share unfinished work when feedback can still change the outcome and protect enough time to think, investigate and build.
Ownership includes asking for help, explaining a constraint and following through after the first version is delivered. We expect people to care about the whole experience and to challenge an assumption with evidence and consideration for the person who made it. Clear communication and dependable follow through matter more than how visible someone can make their activity.
Each working arrangement is discussed individually. We clarify responsibilities, location, availability, compensation and the practical support needed for the role before agreeing to start. You do not need to match every optional experience listed here. Show us the work you can do, the judgment behind it and the areas you are ready to learn.
Getting to know each other
1. Introduce yourself
Tell us which area interests you, how you prefer to work and where we can see a relevant example. Include your location, time zone and availability.
2. Discuss the fit
We review the introduction against the work we need to do. When there is a relevant opportunity, we arrange a conversation about your experience and the problem.
3. Explore the work
Walk through a project and explain your decisions. If a practical exercise would help, agree on its scope and expectations before it starts.
4. Agree on the details
Clarify responsibilities, working arrangement, compensation and start date together. An introduction does not require you to share confidential work or customer data.
Apply for this role
Describe an operational problem you owned from discovery through implementation. Explain the people involved, the constraint, the process you introduced and how it changed the work. A concise document, workflow or anonymized spreadsheet is welcome if you can share it. We are interested in your judgment and follow through, so leave out confidential agreements, personal information and private financial records.