Head of Operations

Job Description

Job Description

About Vessel

Vessel isn't about building better. It's about better buildings.

We've learned how to make almost everything around us better: cars, phones, computers, appliances. Each generation performs better and becomes more efficient to produce.

But building missed the boat.

Vessel exists to change that.

We are a New York City based technology company reinventing how buildings are designed, manufactured, operated, and experienced. We reimagine the building as the ultimate consumer product, bringing together advanced design, engineering, and manufacturing to create buildings that are dramatically more efficient to produce, remarkably simple to operate, and exceptional to experience.

Our first product is Calypso, an entirely new kind of apartment building designed from the ground up as an integrated product rather than a one-off construction project.

Our mission with Calypso is simple: to overcome the housing crisis and offer each person the opportunity for an extraordinary life.

Getting there means doing something that has never been done before. We continually make the building, and everything required to produce it, better.

Every building teaches us how to make the next one better.

As Vessel's Head of Operations, you will own the end to end physical delivery of every Vessel building: manufacturing, supply chain, procurement, logistics, and field execution.

You won't be inheriting an established operating model. You'll help invent it.

You'll:

• Own the delivery of Vessel buildings across schedule, cost, quality, and execution
• Lead manufacturing, production planning, productivity, quality, materials flow, and continuous improvement
• Own supply chain, sourcing, procurement, and supplier performance
• Reinvent how Vessel buildings are packaged, transported, and delivered as we scale
• Lead field execution and our construction managers, contractors, and partners
• Build systems that tell us what is actually happening across our factories and job sites, and where we can do better
• Attack operational challenges at their root and develop innovative solutions across process, tooling, suppliers, sequencing, logistics, and product design
• Help define Vessel's future factory footprint and operating model
• Create the feedback loop between Operations, Product, and Engineering so every building makes the next one better

Vessel's way of creating buildings has never existed before. Neither has the operating system required to deliver them at scale.

You'll have the opportunity to build it. In doing so, you'll help transform one of the last great industries still waiting to be disrupted.

You're a disruptor. A change agent.

You have the curiosity, imagination, intellect, and tenacity to take on extraordinarily difficult problems without obvious answers.

You're fascinated by how things work, and even more interested in how they could work better. You can examine a complex operating challenge, understand what is really happening, challenge the assumptions behind it, imagine a different solution, and then make it real.

You:

• Are an exceptional analytical and systems thinker
• Love difficult, ambiguous problems
• Turn ideas into action and solutions into repeatable systems
• Move comfortably between big picture strategy and the smallest details of execution
• Are intensely quantitative and want to measure what is actually happening
• Think technology first. AI and automation are already part of how you work
• Can lead people, challenge assumptions, and drive change
• Take extraordinary ownership of the things you undertake

We are not looking for a particular number of years of experience or someone steeped in the established practices of century old industrial companies.

We are looking for exceptional ability.

Your background may be unconventional. We hope it is.

What matters is what you have figured out, changed, built, and made better, and whether you want to take on something that has never been done before.

Greater New York City area preferred, with significant travel to Vessel factories, project sites, and new markets.

• We're targeting a base compensation of $250,000 (this could flex depending on experience) plus performance based incentive and meaningful equity participation
• 401k & Health Plans (Medical, Dental, and Vision), including HSA/FSA options   
• Life, AD&D, and Disability Insurance, plus Critical Illness and Accident Insurance 
• Weekly lunches and team building events
• Commuter Benefits

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.