Head of Service Operations (Sr. Manager/Director)

Collective•San Francisco, CA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Collective is redefining how businesses-of-one operate by providing an integrated platform that handles business incorporation, accounting, bookkeeping, tax services, and community access. The company aims to empower self-employed individuals to achieve financial independence and access tax savings similar to large corporations. Collective has been featured in major publications and is backed by prominent investors. This role, Head of Service Operations, is crucial for building and managing the 'production engine' of financial services. The objective is to run a financial services operation that functions like a manufacturing floor, utilizing AI and human expertise to manage workflows for bookkeeping and tax preparation with measurable inputs, outputs, and quality at scale. The Head of Service Operations will be responsible for maintaining current operational quality and throughput while architecting the transition towards exception-based management within an AI-native financial back office.

Requirements

10+ years managing high-volume, process-driven operations. Financial services, fintech, tax services, or professional services at scale preferred.
A manufacturing or industrial operations mindset: thinking in throughput, utilization, cycle time, and first-pass yield, and acting on deviations within hours.
Proven track record running multi-workflow operations where different work types run in parallel and must be balanced dynamically.
Strong people leader with direct experience managing managers, building a player-coach culture where leaders stay close to the work.
Familiarity with Lean and Six Sigma principles, statistical process control, root cause analysis, and variance reduction.
Experience with financial services workflows (accounting, tax, bookkeeping) is strongly preferred; understanding of workflow and quality is necessary.
Comfort in a systems-driven environment where workflows are encoded in tools, with a track record managing against SLAs in a member- or client-facing production environment.
A clear point of view on the AI transition in financial services and experience architecting exception-based management.

Nice To Haves

Formal certification in Lean and Six Sigma is a plus.

Responsibilities

Own daily execution of the full Service Operations function (bookkeeping and tax preparation) as a single integrated manufacturing system.
Manage a team of line managers and senior managers across all production workflows, setting clear performance expectations, running tight operating cadences, and developing hands-on leaders.
Drive daily and weekly production reviews monitoring throughput, SLA adherence, first-pass quality rate, and capacity utilization in real time, maintaining specialist-level performance data and acting on deviations promptly.
Own backlog recovery by activating and executing pre-defined recovery playbooks when production falls behind.
Manage capacity dynamically by matching staffing to inflow forecasts and redistributing specialists across workflow types to eliminate idle capacity and prevent bottlenecks.
Partner with Product Operations to enforce financial quality standards and identify patterns of failure indicating standards gaps.
Partner with Strategic Operations to translate floor needs into system improvement requests, lead adoption of new workflows and tools, and manage the feedback loop for results.
Architect the transition from volume-based execution to exception-based management for the AI-native era, while simultaneously running today's operation at full quality and throughput.

Benefits

Remote-Friendly Environment (US-based remote candidates considered; hybrid schedule for Bay Area employees)
$200 quarterly reimbursement for well-being
Fresh Lunch provided on in-office days (for hybrid schedule)
$150 monthly reimbursement for transit expenses (for hybrid schedule)
Flexible PTO
14 company holidays
100% medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees
75% coverage for dependents for medical, dental, and vision
16 weeks fully paid parental leave
401k plan
Equity package
Quarterly virtual events
Annual in-person summit