Operational Excellence Lead

Recidiviz•Oakland, CA

5d•Remote

About The Position

The Operational Excellence Lead connects the organization’s long-horizon, cross-functional, and external-facing strategy with internal execution. The role builds the operating cadence, information flow, and forums that enable performance-versus-plan management at every level, and owns the follow-through that keeps decisions and strategy connected across organizational levels. The successful candidate will help leaders understand the movement of core impact metrics and how to intervene; establish forums with clear owners, decisions, and metrics; strengthen operational systems for consistent reporting and decision-making; and support data-driven resourcing decisions with ongoing ROI tracking. The role initially focuses on the Impact organization and Engineering leadership team, working closely with functional and technical leads and data and systems teams. As the role expands, it will also support leaders in marketing, business development, finance, and people operations. The position reports to the Chief Administrative Officer.

Requirements

Senior operator, likely with a product management, product operations, or program management background.
Strong analytical skills and comfort with data, including the ability to conduct analysis using tools such as Looker and build a credible, data-driven case.
High emotional intelligence and the ability to work with senior, strong-willed leaders and help them take ownership without dictating to them.
Excellent synthesis and written communication skills, including the ability to manage concurrent threads, clearly re-articulate strategy, and drive timely follow-up.
Bias toward clarity and simplification, including willingness to reduce the number of people involved in a decision or meeting.
Ability to constructively challenge partners and leaders and stress-test their thinking.
Composure under pressure and ability to navigate interpersonal complexity.
Comfort operating with significant seniority and scope from day one; this is intended as a senior hire.
Experience in government, public-sector, or B2G contexts, or with mission-driven and nonprofit organizations.
Experience running OKR or performance-versus-plan processes at scale.

Responsibilities

Own the connective layer between long-term vision and strategy and functional leads’ near-term execution.
Run organization-wide performance-versus-plan and OKR processes, working with leads to define outcomes, metrics, and reporting cadence.
Own planning cycles end to end, including calendars, templates, and cross-team dependencies.
Make ownership, decision-making, and escalation paths explicit.
Facilitate cross-functional reviews that support organizational strategy; clarify questions, capture action items with owners and dates, and keep discussions time-boxed.
Own the Impact Monthly meeting, including its update deck and coordination with teams to source case studies and highlights.
Partner with the Director of Talent on an organization-wide communications calendar and content based on critical happenings.
Ensure the organization has trustworthy, accessible data for performance-versus-plan, unit economics, and resourcing decisions.
Support business cases for strategic initiatives, such as headcount requests, RFPs, and resourcing requests, using appropriate value frameworks.
Build and conduct analyses, including in Looker, to diagnose drivers and blockers for core metrics such as transitions, usage, CSAT, and launch momentum.
Use data and diagnosis to build trust with analytical engineering and impact teams.
Use data-driven insights to improve decision-making, organizational design, and operating orientation.
Work alongside individual leaders on strategic challenges, strengthening their output and diagnosing whether gaps relate to skills, structure, or hiring.
Inform performance management and promotions with impact data.
Maintain a view of the critical-path portfolio, distinguishing funded work from unfunded work to inform planning and resourcing.
Continuously improve the operational excellence function’s methodology, templates, tools, and processes, and share effective approaches across teams.
Design systems to capture and improve unit economics.
Help define requirements for and implement a revenue operations system.
Help the organization assess AI and tooling ROI.
Define requirements for measuring cloud or personnel costs by state and partner with an internal engineer or data partner to build a dashboard.