Role Overview
As Head of Operations at Team Rankings, you will play a pivotal role in our next phase of expansion. This position will have broad exposure to multiple functional areas including ops, HR, finance, and administration. Ultimately, you will help build the operational backbone that enables the company to hockey-stick its growth rate.
This job requires a blend of strategic planning, process focus, and leadership, all paired with a get-it-done attitude. Working with the CEO, you will analyze business opportunities, risks, and organizational constraints. Then you'll work together to put new hires, tools, and processes in place. Along the way, we'll expect you to learn new skills and get outside your comfort zone to do what the business needs most.
Day-to-day, you will ensure that our growing team consistently executes at a high level, thanks to your project management skills and clearly communicated expectations. Representing the “voice of the CEO” to colleagues and external constituents, you will foster a collaborative and supportive culture, while also enforcing accountability and performance.
Finally, you will take personal ownership of a variety of back-office tasks currently performed by the CEO. Your effective and efficient execution of these tasks will earn you the trust of the founders, and lead to you taking on more strategic projects over time.
Key Responsibilities
The Head of Operations will be responsible for a changing mix of duties and deliverables. Consequently, this role is ideal for a person who excels at balancing multiple priorities, has all-star level attention to detail, and thrives on tackling fresh challenges.
At any point, your work will include some combination of the tasks listed below. It's a long list, but many of them are episodic in nature, or only performed as needed. A few specific tasks might become your top priorities for a few weeks, then go away for a while. Other tasks you may only need to do monthly, seasonally, or even just once a year.
Plan Our Work
- Collaborate with the CEO to set short- and long-term company goals
- Manage and communicate our project roadmap and calendar
- Review future requirements and assess capacity for new projects
- Analyze team productivity and propose ideas to increase efficiency
- Track team member plans for time off and coordinate coverage
Work Our Plan
- Ensure business readiness for peak seasonal sales periods
- Communicate and discuss key goals and deadlines with the team
- Identify and resolve execution bottlenecks and dependencies
- Reinforce individual expectations and address any concerns
- Compile and communicate KPIs and other business metrics
Help Grow The Team
- Work with the CEO to implement hiring and onboarding processes
- Manage the recruitment process and accelerate decision making
- Communicate with candidates, set up and coordinate interviews
- Assist with job postings, candidate sourcing, and screening
- Oversee the onboarding process for new hires and contractors
Count The Beans
- Manage (or outsource) company bookkeeping and financial reporting
- Work with accountants to research and apply for relevant tax credits
- Coordinate company compliance with federal and state tax laws
- Ensure timely payments to (and collections from) vendors and partners
- Oversee payroll, employee benefits setup, and benefits administration
- Consult with bankers to optimize returns on our cash reserves
Keep The Regulators Happy
- Manage state-by-state sports betting related licensure and compliance
- Ensure timely renewal of state licenses and related requirements
- Lead the process of applying for sports betting licensure in new states
Do Whatever Else Is Needed
- Plan company travel and team meetups (typically 2-3 per year)
- Work with brokers to procure and maintain company insurance policies
- Manage the design, purchase, and distribution of company swag
- Find, screen, negotiate and contract with vendors and service providers
Ideal Qualifications
We're committed to building the smartest and most productive team in the sports + tech + data game, so we're picky about who joins our team. To become our Head of Operations, you'll need to demonstrate an exceptional mix of the following skills and traits:
- Experience in operations management at a growing small company
- Strong project management and process design skills
- Outstanding attention to detail (e.g. deliverables rarely need rework)
- Metrics driven (e.g. instinctively defines and measures success criteria)
- Solid understanding of financial data and basic accounting principles
- Strong communication, interpersonal, and negotiation skills
- Effective leader, motivator, and consensus builder
- Industry or personal experience with sports data, betting, and pools
Since the 'perfect' candidate for any job typically exists only in an alternate universe, you don't have to check all the boxes above. However, you will need to convince us that you can quickly develop in the areas where you're less experienced or skilled.
About Team Rankings
Launched from a Stanford dorm room, Team Rankings has evolved from a math geek’s passion project into a thriving and profitable business. For over a decade, our predictions and rankings have empowered sports fans to better understand the games they love. Today, sports bettors, pool players, and fantasy managers around the world rely on our premium tools and data to make winning decisions.
Our diversified revenue model includes three consumer brands (TeamRankings, BetIQ, and PoolGenius) that collectively have thousands of paying subscribers and attract over 11 million website visitors per year. In addition, we supply content and technology to industry leaders such as ESPN, Action Network, and Yahoo! Sports, and partner with top-tier gaming operators like FanDuel and BetMGM.
Recent advancements in sports data, AI, and machine learning, along with a rapidly expanding sports betting landscape, have positioned our company for unprecedented growth. The most exciting chapter of our story is just beginning, and we're looking for brilliant and motivated people to help us write it.
What Makes Us Different
Instead of raising venture capital, we chose the old school way. Stay lean. Understand customers. Then build things they want to use and buy. That strategy took time, but (literally) paid dividends. Today, we’re a self-sufficient business that's built for the long haul. Our founders still run the company, and 2023 marked our 14th straight year of profitability.
As a result, we offer the best perks of a startup environment without the typical downsides. Here you’ll experience the thrills and challenges of a scrappy, remote team competing against rivals 100x or even 1000x our size. But you won’t have to commute, work 80-hour weeks, or worry about losing your job if the CEO can't raise more money.
We don’t answer to impatient investors or corporate overlords, so external pressures, politics, and bureaucracy have no place at Team Rankings. Instead, our culture prioritizes and rewards getting stuff done. Best of all, we’re small enough that you personally can have a huge impact on the future of our business, and share in the financial rewards.
Culture & Work Environment
Our culture and work environment are key reasons for our success, so it's crucial that they are a great fit for you. We think that working at Team Rankings has many amazing benefits besides just having a well-paid job in sports (which is about as rare as a Detroit Lions Super Bowl ring). However, we know that not everyone will agree.
In short, having happy and healthy employees matters to us. Outside of a few seasonal peaks, a 40-ish hour work week is our norm. We support flexible schedules and don't have any pre-set limits on time off. And we keep it fun—not only in daily interactions, but also at periodic team meetups in places like Nashville, San Diego, New Orleans, Cape Cod, Austin, Asheville, and Charleston, SC.
At the same time, we have very high standards when it comes to individual productivity and work quality. From day one, we'll expect you to embrace our norms for managing work and make meaningful contributions. You'll need to thrive in a fast-paced environment susceptible to rapid changes in priorities, and make smart decisions in the face of considerable uncertainty.
Last but not least, you should place a high personal value on being part of a closely-knit small team. If getting to know your colleagues, engaging in discussions about all aspects of our business, and joining in the occasional banter or pun-making contest on Slack doesn’t sound exciting in the least, then Team Rankings probably isn’t the company for you 🙂.
How To Apply
To apply for the Head of Operations position you will need to:
- Submit your resumé and a cover letter
- In your cover letter, please explain why you are interested in the Head of Operations role at Team Rankings, why it makes sense as the next step in your career and an accomplishment (professionally or personally) of which you are most proud.
- Provide a link to your LinkedIn profile
Hiring Process
Our hiring process typically consists of the following steps:
- Application (resumé, cover letter)
- Initial phone screen or Zoom (30 minutes)
- Roughly half a day of Zoom-based interviews with our team
- (Optionally) The completion of a paid project and/or some consulting work
- (If possible) An in-person meetup with our CEO
Upon receipt of your application, we aim to complete the second and third steps above, or inform you that you are not a finalist, within 2-4 weeks.
For finalists, we will determine the scope and expected duration of any paid projects or consulting work on a case-by-case basis.
We look forward to getting to know you!
Team Rankings, LLC is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, color, national origin, pregnancy, ancestry, domestic partner status, disability, sexual orientation, age, genetic predisposition, medical condition, marital status, citizenship status, military or veteran status, or any other basis covered by applicable laws.