Director of Fulfillment Operations for a U.S. DTC Apparel Brand

Job Description

Job Description

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About the Client

Our client is a rapidly scaling direct-to-consumer lifestyle apparel brand built on the mindset of living with intent — we don't just sell gear, we enable a lifestyle: Die on Empty. Our customers are loyal, our drops sell out, and we're building something meaningful.

Here's what makes this role different: we fulfill everything ourselves. No 3PL, no outsourced warehouse — we own the building, the boxes, and every order that leaves the dock. As Cove scales, that operation must evolve just as fast. We're looking for a sharp, execution-driven leader to own the physical side of the business and build the engine that gets us to the next several multiples of scale.

About the Role

We're hiring a Director of Fulfillment Operations to lead Cove's in-house warehouse, fulfillment, and shipping operations end to end. In this role, you'll ensure products move through our operation quickly, accurately, cost-effectively, and at the highest quality standards, while partnering closely with leadership to optimize inventory management, vendor relationships, and overall operational performance.

As the most senior operations leader in the warehouse, you'll combine strategic leadership with a hands-on approach to build a best-in-class fulfillment organization. This is a newly created role with full ownership of a 32-person warehouse team operating across two shifts (Monday–Sunday, 6:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.), including five Team Leads and a Warehouse Manager.

You'll join at a pivotal moment in Cove's growth. As we prepare to move into a significantly larger facility this fall, you'll lead the design and implementation of the warehouse operation that will support 3–5x our current volume , creating the systems, processes, and organizational structure needed to scale efficiently.

Today, the operation is facing critical challenges in hiring, onboarding, training, workforce planning, and day-to-day execution, leading to costly backlogs in both customer orders and returns. While the existing team has built a solid foundation, they're looking for an experienced operational leader who can eliminate bottlenecks, introduce scalable systems, establish clear performance standards, and develop a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

This is not a role for someone who simply maintains existing operations. We're looking for a builder—someone who has successfully transformed fulfillment organizations by implementing operational best practices, improving labor forecasting, developing training programs, and coaching teams to operate smarter and more efficiently. Your success will be measured by your ability to improve throughput, reduce cost per order, increase fulfillment accuracy, and build the operational infrastructure that enables Cove's next stage of growth.

This is a hybrid position , requiring two days per week onsite at our warehouse.

** Applicants need to be located in Southern California.

Office address is: 25956 Commercentre Dr. Lake Forest, CA 92630 **

Key Responsibilities

- Own Cove's in-house fulfillment operation end to end — receiving, putaway, inventory, pick/pack/ship, and returns — with direct accountability for getting every order out accurately and on time.

- Lead our facility move this fall and design the layout, slotting, and workflows for the next stage of scale.

- Select and implement a WMS and the systems discipline that take us off manual workflows — directly attacking picking as our primary bottleneck.

- Negotiate pricing, lead times, capacity, and terms with parcel carriers, packaging/materials suppliers, and equipment vendors.

- Build and own the KPI and scorecard framework — on-time ship, order accuracy, inventory accuracy, units-per-hour, cost per order, labor productivity, and safety.

- Manage inventory and operational risk and peak/Q4 readiness in partnership with Merchandising and Finance.

- Identify and eliminate operational bottlenecks, single-point-of-failure risks, and margin leakage.

- Build and maintain operating dashboards for fulfillment, cost, labor, and vendor performance.

- Drive continuous improvement across pick/pack, packaging, labor models, and right-sized automation.

- Build and lead Cove's warehouse team — shift managers, inventory control, and zone leads beneath you, so the operation scales on systems and people, not on you alone.

Requirements

Who You are:

• A seasoned operator with 7–12+ years in fulfillment, warehouse, or DTC operations — ideally in a high-growth DTC or apparel brand
• Someone who has run an owned distribution center bigger than ours and taken an operation through a step-change in daily order volume
• Hands-on with WMS implementation/migration, slotting, and labor-management systems
• A strong negotiator who gets better pricing, terms, and performance out of carriers and vendors
• Data-driven and financially literate — you live in dashboards and manage cost, margin, and service-level KPIs
• Low ego, high ownership — the most organized person in the room and the one grabbing a scanner or unloading a container when the moment calls for it
• Comfortable in a fast-moving, founder-led environment with minimal bureaucracy
• Aligned with Cove's tone: bold, purpose-driven, no corporate fluff

Nice to haves

• You've stood up a facility move or new-site buildout before
• Apparel / soft-goods background with high SKU counts and size/color variants
• You know how to right-size automation — when conveyance, pick-to-light, or packing automation pays off at a given volume and when it doesn't
• Experience supporting limited-edition or drop-based retail models

What Success looks like

• Orders ship faster, more accurately, and at a lower cost per order
• The new facility opens clean and scales without drama
• Picking stops being the bottleneck
• Peak gets handled without heroics
• Operations scale smoothly as revenue grows
• Cove gains real leverage with its carriers and vendors