Operations & Experience Lead (Artists & Guests)

VAWAA • New York, NY

13d • $65,000 - $85,000 • Remote

About The Position

VAWAA is building a global creative platform where master artists open their studios for immersive, one-on-one creative apprenticeships. Guests travel around the world to learn everything from ceramics to calligraphy to textile dyeing directly from a master craftsperson. We are a small, creative, globally distributed team and community — building the world’s most inspiring ecosystem for craft, creativity, and cultural connection. Role Overview We’re looking for a dynamic builder to support, onboard, and elevate both artists and guests with exceptional communication, operational rigor, and strong fluency and taste for global craft processes. You’ll serve as the connective tissue and growth engine in our two-sided marketplace: our global artist community and the guests who travel to learn from them. This is a hybrid, cross-functional role blending communication, experience design, operations, editorial judgment, and systems-building. It requires both speed and depth, and the ability to switch between high-volume execution and thoughtful craft. On the artist side, you’ll onboard hundreds of artists, refine their offerings, curate assets, and elevate the clarity and quality of programs. You’ll balance fast-moving communication with deeper editorial, structural, and experience-design work—making sure programs feel teachable, compelling, and aligned with VAWAA standards. On the guest side, you’ll partner with our Guest Experience Manager while also taking meaningful ownership of the guest journey end-to-end: delivering fast, thoughtful communication, managing bookings, anticipating needs, and improving conversion. You’ll use strong emotional intelligence and operational judgment to build trust, solve issues, and create coherence between artist capabilities and guest expectations. As the company evolves, this role may tilt more toward artist onboarding, experience design, or guest operations—depending on business needs. In all cases, you will own a core domain with autonomy and increasing strategic influence. If you love solving hard problems, bringing order to complexity, and building systems that make people feel supported, you’ll thrive here.

Requirements

• Experience in early-stage, high-intensity environments where ownership, coordination, communication, and operations were core to your success.
• Strong writing, editorial, visual, and experience-design judgment
• A track record of high-volume communication done with clarity, warmth, and precision
• Experience shaping programs, workshops, or learning journeys
• Operational stamina: ability to move fast, juggle multiple priorities, and shift contexts
• High cross-cultural and emotional intelligence
• Experience using tools (including AI) to scale yourself and build workflows
• A history of working full-time in remote, computer-based roles requiring responsiveness, self-direction, and sharp judgment
• Demonstrated ability to take ownership in evolving environments where no one tells you exactly what to do

Responsibilities

• Lead and scale artist onboarding with speed, rigor, and editorial quality
• Manage all artist communications prompting submissions, gathering assets, offering guidance, co-designing, editing and support
• Understand their work, shape programs, rewrite descriptions, curate images
• Strengthen artist relationships & support their growth as hosts & teachers
• Partner with guest experience manager to own the guest journey end-to-end
• Manage bookings, guide decisions, and increase conversions
• Solve time-sensitive issues across time zones, cultures and contexts
• Use AI tools to build systems, automate repeatable work, and increase leverage
• Think proactively: identify bottlenecks, propose solutions, execute
• Create clarity, calm and momentum across a fast-moving global community

Benefits

• Health insurance
• 1 Free and discounted VAWAA experiences
• Growth path: In 2–3 years, this role could evolve into Head of Guest Experience, Head of Artist Onboarding and Experience, Head of Creative Operations or even COO, depending on your skills and ambition.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees