Transportation Operations Manager (Remote, Americas)

The Shopify Fulfillment Network (SFN) is early in our mission to democratize fulfillment, but it's one we take very seriously. We can't carry out this mission without putting our merchants' needs first, and we think now is the perfect time to add a Transportation Operations Manager to the team.

Yes, you read that right - in this time of Covid-19, Shopify is still hiring. So we're definitely open for business, and we're fighting hard to keep hundreds of thousands of other businesses open as well. If that sounds like something you could get behind, keep reading.

The team you'd be joining is working at the forefront of an inspiring and complex Shopify product. This team is responsible for transportation operations and execution. We focus on Merchant delight by making our transportation operations faster, more reliable, scalable, greener, and lower cost. When you think that our total merchant base now into the millions merchants in over 175 countries, you get an idea of just how complex this problem set is. NOW is the chance to get in on the ground floor. We need someone who thrives in ambiguous environments and can tackle challenging problems in the transportation space. We want someone excited by transportation operations, thrives on driving daily execution, that can dive deep into data and use KPIs/metrics to improve performance.

The role will work on the Transportation Operations Team managing facilities for the Central Region (CST), with solid partnership cross-functionally. This will include:

• Experience in Last-Mile Deliveries utilizing carriers, including but not limited to USPS, UPS, DHL, and FedEx
• Experience with all modes of transportation, including but not limited to parcel, LTL, full/partial truckload, and international freight
• A clear understanding of mail classes (First Class, Priority Mail, Express, and Ground), ship methods, transit days, and zones
• Own operational carrier performance metrics, routines, and processes. Identify areas to improve overall performance
• Driving daily transportation execution with our carriers and warehouses, including monitoring and managing daily pick up, in-transit, and delivery performance within the network to reduce service disruption and escalate issues as needed
• Utilize problem-solving methods to identify opportunities and initiate projects to drive sustainable savings in cost and process improvements while maintaining and improving service levels
• Lead key strategic projects such as peak planning, optimization, and shipment schedule redesigns
• Identify constraints and issues associated with established forecasts, develop options available for resolving issues, develop critical conclusions and recommendations based upon the plans, and effectively and proactively communicate options, findings, and recommendations to business leaders
• Work directly with warehouse facilities to meet planning parameters, monitor and improve on-time and in-full delivery performance
• Develop an in-depth understanding of merchant/customer knowledge and leverage it to support field operations on various initiatives
• Continually assess our processes, systems, and talent to ensure we are well equipped to exceed our customer expectations and deliver the expected growth
• Communicate business service/cost performance and opportunities to leadership and devise clear plans for KPI improvements to improve our speed and reliability across our network
• Build a strong collaborative relationship with all internal (Partnerships, Merchant Facing Team, Planning & Operations) and external (3PL Warehouse Operations & Carrier Partners) parties through effective communication, conflict resolution, and compliance management

Qualifications

Our ideal candidate has:

• Strong background in transportation, logistics, or carrier partnership development, preferably in the e-commerce space (last-mile delivery, small parcel).
• Experience in warehouse operations with a clear understanding of day to day operational processes
• Demonstrate experience in transportation execution with a clear understanding of track and trace, pickup, and delivery expectations
• Demonstrate ability to analyze data sets using excel/google sheets to identify complex issues and develop solutions
• Ability to deep dive into operational data while using KPIs and metrics to improve speed and reliability across the network
• Strong written and verbal communication
• Knowledge of SQL is a plus
• Excellent problem-solving skills and experience with some problem-solving methodology (e.g., 5Ys, Kaizen, etc.)
• Excited to build from the ground up and able to create new tools, processes, and metrics
• Ability to manage initiatives and work cross-functionally to get results
• Thrives in ambiguity and a fast-paced environment. Ready to jump in anywhere

Challenge question:

We are constantly working to improve our transportation speed/delivery/experience. Tell me about a time when you used data to help drive an improvement in transportation, logistics, or fulfillment.

a) What problem were you trying to solve?

b) How did you approach the problem?

c) How did you work with the data to draw conclusions?

d) What actions did you take based on your conclusions?

e) How did you ensure this problem remained solved?

Examples of problems could be - delivery speed, carrier performance, processing time, etc.

How we hire

At Shopify, we put a lot of care and time into who we hire. We believe that in order to build the best products, we need to build high impact teams. Our recruitment process centres around what we call the Life Story interview, a conversational-style interview where we get to learn more about you.
Learn more about our hiring process