Operations Manager, Work Auth, Work Authorization

Amazon's Talent Solutions organization is working to build the earth's best employer — and Work Authorization (WA) is at the center of that mission. The WA team is a group of seasoned subject matter experts who, in close partnership with Legal, Risk & Compliance, Immigration, Technology, and Product teams, protects Amazon from the financial, reputational, and legal risks of unauthorized working across every country in which we operate. Our work is not incidental — it is a front-line defense against regulatory exposure and a foundational pillar of compliant, scalable global hiring.As Manager III, HR Specialist for Work Authorization Operations, you will serve as a single-threaded owner for the operational delivery of work authorization compliance services worldwide. You will lead team managers and process leads who together oversee HR Specialists providing global production support.This is a strategic L6 leadership role — you are expected to set vision and direction, define success, own the multi-year roadmap for your delivery organization, and represent WA Operations with authority in meetings with Legal, Risk & Compliance, Immigration, Technology, and Product stakeholders. You will build and sustain an organization that understands work authorization compliance at a deep, substantive level and that holds itself to an uncompromising standard of accuracy, process integrity, and SOP adherence. You will work in close daily partnership with Regional HR Managers who own the program design and regional compliance strategy. Your accountability is for operational execution, team capability, and the delivery systems that make compliant, high-quality outcomes possible at scale. Together, you and the Regional HR Managers form the leadership backbone of Work Authorization.Key job responsibilitiesPeople Management & Leadership Development- Lead, coach, and develop Manager-level direct reports as emerging and established leaders — not just operational supervisors. Invest in their growth as independent problem-solvers, communicators, and people leaders.- Define clear performance expectations for each Manager aligned to both business outcomes and leadership competencies; conduct regular structured feedback conversations and annual calibrations.- Build a succession pipeline within the management team; proactively identify high-potential talent across the organization for development.- Foster a culture of psychological safety, accountability, and continuous improvement. Model the standard you expect: deep curiosity, intellectual honesty, and zero tolerance for compliance shortcuts.- Own the org health of the broader team — including engagement, attrition, capacity planning, and workload equity — and develop mechanisms to proactively surface and address issues before they affect performance.- Partner with your Managers to navigate complex performance management situations, building their capability to have hard conversations and reach fair, documented outcomes.- Drive consistent onboarding and role-readiness standards across all team levels, ensuring new team members are equipped with substantive compliance knowledge — not just process scripts — before handling live casework.Compliance Expertise & Knowledge Management- Develop genuine, deep fluency in work authorization law, regulatory frameworks, and compliance obligations across all operating jurisdictions — not surface-level familiarity. Understand the "why" behind every control, not just the "what."- Champion a compliance-first culture throughout your organization. Make it unambiguously clear that SOP deviations, unauthorized workarounds, and process shortcuts carry serious legal and regulatory risk — and hold that standard consistently.- Partner with Legal and Risk & Compliance to remain current on regulatory changes, and translate those changes into updated operational guidance, retraining, and revised SOPs in a timely and thorough manner.- Build structured knowledge management systems — including tiered training curricula, knowledge assessments, compliance playbooks, and escalation guides — that give the team durable, accessible tools for handling complex, ambiguous situations correctly.- Establish a compliance quality framework: define defect categories, track defect rates by manager and process stream, root-cause recurring issues, and drive targeted remediation programs.- Proactively identify compliance blind spots — areas where the team's knowledge or processes are insufficient to handle emerging business scenarios, regulatory changes, or technology shifts — and address them ahead of risk materialization.- Act as an escalation resource for complex, novel compliance questions that require judgment beyond standard SOPs; partner with Legal when matters exceed operational authority.Operational Excellence & Process Improvement- Own end-to-end accountability for WA operational delivery metrics — including SLA attainment, case quality, throughput, error rates, and customer experience — across all regions and vendor-supported workflows.- Design and maintain a rigorous operating rhythm: daily/weekly/monthly reviews with each Manager layer, structured escalation paths, and clear accountability for metric ownership at each tier.- Lead continuous improvement initiatives using lean and kaizen methodologies; identify and eliminate process waste, redundancy, and error-prone manual steps.- Own the identification and prioritization of process improvement opportunities across all operational streams, including intake, document review, verification, escalation handling, and vendor coordination.- Manage vendor team coordination and performance; ensure vendor SLAs, quality standards, and compliance obligations are met and that escalation paths between vendor teams and internal teams are clear and effective.- Drive standardization across regions to the extent compliance frameworks allow, while accommodating legitimate jurisdictional variation. Eliminate unnecessary divergence that creates training burden or quality risk.- Maintain accurate, real-time visibility into capacity, volume trends, and staffing adequacy; proactively flag and address resource gaps before they affect service levels.Stakeholder Management & Communication- Serve as a confident, knowledgeable representative of WA Operations in cross-functional meetings with Legal, Risk & Compliance, Immigration, Technology, Product, Workforce Staffing, and senior PXT leadership — speaking with authority on operational processes, SLA capabilities, team capacity, and compliance posture.- Maintain a close, trust-based partnership with Regional HR Managers who own program design and regional compliance strategy. Provide them with clear, honest, and timely operational intelligence so they can make well-informed programmatic decisions.- Actively participate in technology and product roadmap discussions; provide substantive input on operational and compliance requirements, edge cases, and scalability needs — not just react to what is built.- Build executive-quality communications —business reviews, escalation narratives — that deliver clear findings, data-backed conclusions, and actionable recommendations to senior stakeholders.- Earn trust with cross-functional partners through demonstrated expertise, consistent follow-through, and straightforward communication about what is and is not operationally feasible.- Represent WA Operations in OP planning, headcount discussions, and budget processes; clearly articulate the operational implications of business growth, regulatory changes, or technology gaps.- Own and manage escalation intake from internal business partners including recruiters, HRBPs, Workforce Staffing, and senior business leaders; ensure escalations are triaged, routed, and resolved promptly with proper root cause capture.Strategic Planning & Execution- Define, instrument, and regularly review success metrics for the WA Operations organization — including compliance defect rates, SLA attainment, team capability benchmarks, and experience outcomes for candidates and employees.- Contribute substantive input to OP1/OP2 planning cycles: author or co-author sections covering operational health, investment needs, risk landscape, and capacity requirements with precision and strategic clarity.- Partner with Technology and Product teams to shape the WA technology roadmap; ensure that planned technology investments solve real operational and compliance problems and that the team is prepared to adopt and leverage new capabilities effectively.- Identify and proactively address structural risks to program continuity: knowledge concentration, single points of failure, vendor dependency, and compliance gaps in emerging business areas.- Build the case for organizational investment — headcount, tooling, training, process redesign — with rigorous data, clear business rationale, and connection to compliance risk reduction and operational performance improvement.- Maintain awareness of regulatory and business trends globally; partner with Legal, Regional HR Managers, and Global WA Service Leader to ensure the operational organization stays ahead of — not reactive to — changes in the compliance landscape.Basic qualifications- Bachelor's degree- Experience in the management of large teams (50+ members)- Experience in verbal and written communication for executive level leaders- 6+ years of HR experience- 3+ years of people management experience- Experience in HR operations, compliance operations, immigration, global mobility, or closely related fields.- Proven ability to own complex operational programs with cross-functional dependencies — not just manage execution within a defined lane.- Strong command of data and operations analytics; ability to design metrics frameworks, interpret trends, identify root causes, and communicate findings clearly to senior stakeholders.- Experience navigating regulatory or compliance environments where process adherence is non-negotiable and errors carry material risk.- Experience partnering with Legal, Risk & Compliance, or similar governance functions in a substantive, trusted-partner capacity.- Speak, write and read fluently in English.Preferred qualification - Master's degree or above in business, HR, or a related field- Deep domain expertise in work authorization, I-9/E-Verify, right-to-work verification, or global employment eligibility compliance.- Experience as a single-threaded program owner for a global operations function, including OP planning and 3-year roadmap development.- Familiarity with HR technology platforms, case management systems, and automation tools used in compliance or HR service delivery contexts.- Active participation in technology or product roadmap discussions — including requirements definition, user acceptance testing, or feature prioritization — from an operational and compliance lens.- Experience developing and implementing compliance training curricula, knowledge management systems, or quality assurance frameworks for large service delivery teams.- PHR, GPHR, SPHR, or equivalent HR certification.- Experience managing vendor or BPO teams as part of a blended service delivery model.- Demonstrated comfort operating in ambiguous, rapidly evolving regulatory or business environments — with a track record of building durable, scalable processes despite uncertainty.Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. 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