Senior Manager, Build Operations

Zapier•San Francisco, CA

5d•$191,500 - $241,800•Remote

About The Position

As Senior Manager, Build Operations, you lead the function that surfaces insight, accelerates delivery, and reduces operational drag for Zapier's engineering and product teams. Your core mission is closing the gaps in how work gets prioritized, decided, and run across Build — reducing financial exposure, unblocking build velocity, and establishing continuity in how operations run. You'll manage a team of four and partner across the organization to drive adoption and alignment — restoring execution capacity on the work most critical to Finance and Build leadership, and building the visibility, operating rhythms, and enablement that help engineering and product move faster. As that operating picture matures, you'll extend it to go-to-market teams so every part of the company works from the same source of truth — one shared view, in consistent language — that levels the playing field and takes the guesswork out of what's shipping and when.

Requirements

Has been the operational backbone of an engineering or product org — restored execution on stalled work, stood up operating rhythms, and earned the trust of senior technical leaders.
Experience running cross-functional programs that span multiple teams or organizations, not just managing work within a single team
Proven ability to translate technical or engineering concepts into language and frameworks that non-technical audiences can use and own
Strong project and program management fundamentals: you're comfortable with project plans, milestones, dependency tracking, risk management, and change documentation
Ability to partner across functions and influence without relying on title — you can hold a room and drive alignment in complex settings
Comfort operating in ambiguity and fast-paced change; you thrive when scope isn't fully defined and you have to figure out the path
Experience securing buy-in and resourcing from senior stakeholders on programs that weren't yet fully scoped or understood
Familiarity with modern operations tools and the willingness to microlearn new systems; deep technical expertise is not required
Experience embedding AI into team workflows and processes, not just using it for personal productivity

Responsibilities

Restore execution capacity on the P0 workstreams blocking Finance and Build leadership — take ownership, drive them to completion, keep them current.
Provide the operational layer the Build Org needs to execute strategy, and drive the prioritized work already published.
Design and socialize the operating model Build runs on — turning engineering-side architecture and rhythms into something teams actually adopt — and extend that shared framework to go-to-market so both organizations operate the same way.
Build, own, and scale the connected visibility layer — a live, auto-generated view of what's shipping, where work overlaps, and where ownership is at risk — starting in Build and extending across the business so every team works from one source of truth, in one language.
Own the dependency and primitive-ownership routing layer so cross-team requirements reach the accountable owner instead of dying in DMs.
Drive adoption through enablement — training, feedback loops, and continuous-improvement cycles — so change lands once, centrally, with adoption as a clear metric.
Partner with Build and GTM leadership to spot adoption gaps, clear blockers, and secure resourcing for the initiatives that matter most.
Build trust and durable relationships with Build's senior leaders; be the operational partner they rely on.
Secure headcount, stabilize the team, and shore up the platforms the org depends on.
Manage a team of four (an L4 TPM, two ops ICs, and a contractor); set direction and unblock their work.
Document operational decisions and trade-offs; write the proposals that win senior alignment and resourcing.
Identify and implement AI-powered tools and workflows to increase team efficiency and reduce manual overhead