Director of Operations

Contrarian Thinking is a new kind of investment and advisory firm powered by media, with 13M+ followers and 100M+ monthly views on our content and a fast-growing team behind it. We’re not looking for someone to “manage operations.” We want the person who builds the engine room. You recruit the right people. You install workflows that let teams move without friction. You make every department stronger as Contrarian Thinking scales.

This role owns the people and operating infrastructure at Contrarian Thinking. You run a hiring process that actually delivers A-players on a timeline. You build the performance management and development systems that grow our team. You partner with department heads on cleaner project workflows. And you tighten the cross-functional communication that turns a fast-moving company into a coordinated one. If you’ve ever looked at an organization and thought “this should be simpler,” “we’re wasting time,” or “this could run 10x better,” this is your seat. You’re not here to maintain what exists. You’re here to build the operating foundation that makes the next stage of the company repeatable.

We already have what most companies spend years trying to build. A 13M+ audience. 100M+ monthly views. Proven products. Real momentum. What we need now is an operations center. The people and process engine that makes a fast-moving company actually function as one team.

You own recruiting and hiring across Contrarian Thinking. That means building the sourcing engine, running the candidate pipeline, owning the offer process, and building onboarding that gets new hires productive fast. You work with department heads to define what an A-player looks like for each role, then actually deliver those people on a timeline. Hiring slows companies more than almost anything else. You make it one of our strengths.

You build the people infrastructure at CT. Performance management cycles. Clear role expectations. Feedback rhythms. Skill development paths that let our team grow inside CT instead of out of it. You coach team leaders to be better managers. You raise the bar on standards across the company. And you make sure every person here knows what’s expected of them, how they’re tracking, and what’s next.

You own how the company runs day-to-day. You work with team leaders to build better, more efficient project workflows. You design agentic AI workflows that give every team real leverage. We already lean on Claude and AI tools heavily, and you’re the person who scales that muscle across the company so every department ships more with less friction. You tighten cross-departmental communication so handoffs stop dropping. You own internal company communications: all-hands, updates, the weekly heartbeat that keeps the team aligned. You stand up the building blocks of operations as we grow. Office, tools, vendors, the infrastructure that lets the team focus on the work. Some of this touches related entities like BizScout and CT Capital where workflows overlap, but the core of this role is making Contrarian Thinking itself run.

Speed is our default. In a typical week you close out two finalist interviews and push offers. You sit with a department head on a workflow that’s burning cycles and rebuild it cleanly. You run a development conversation with a high-potential team member. You ship a company-wide internal comm that lands the week’s priorities. You partner with two team leaders on a stalled cross-team handoff. You map an agentic AI workflow that saves a team five hours a week. You audit a hiring funnel that’s running cold. You kill one process that doesn’t earn its keep. You prep the next performance review cycle. You touch every team in the building. Content, marketing, product, advisory, member success, support, events. You’re the person team leaders pull aside when something actually needs to get fixed.

These are the words we stand by, live by, and define what it means to be a Contrarian.

1. People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

2. Be a great f*cking human. Do what’s right even when it hurts.

3. How you do anything is how you do everything.

4. We do the dirty work.

5. Your word is your contract.

6. We are Archimedes. Find your lever.

7. Winners want pressure.

8. We want your weird. Better weird than boring.

9. Your job isn’t done until THE job is done. We work the problem.

10. Assumptions are for assholes. Find the truth.

11. Less words, more meaning.

12. Even our notes are worth stealing. Make every creation a mini-masterpiece.

13. Show me your results, not your intentions.

You are an operator first. You’ve run businesses or divisions, meaning you have an intuitive sense for when the machine is humming and when the gears are grinding. You move with blistering speed, make hard decisions, and take absolute ownership of the outcomes. You are a systems thinker at your core: when you see chaos, your instinct is to simplify it; when you see a win, your instinct is to make it endlessly repeatable. Most importantly, your DNA matches ours. You challenge legacy assumptions, operate with relentless urgency, and care strictly about raw results over optics.

You likely have 7–10+ years of experience in operations, consulting, or business leadership, with a track record of scaling companies or solving complex operational problems. You understand financial drivers like profit, cash flow, and efficiency, and you’ve built systems that teams actually use. You’re comfortable leading people, holding standards, and operating in environments where things move fast and change often.

Austin, TX. Full-time, in office.

Base Salary

• Compensation commensurate with experience

Bonus (important)

• 20–50% of base tied to:
  • revenue growth
  • margin improvement
  • execution KPIs

• 100% company-paid health, dental, and vision for all full-time Crew Members, with the option to add dependents.
• Unlimited PTO (with approval from your Direct Support) plus 8 paid US holidays.
• On-time direct deposit pay 2x/month.
• Option to enroll in a 401(k) plan via Vestwell.
• Learn expert deal-making and how to buy businesses with 100% free access to all of our courses, including our flagship Contrarian Academy and Growth Boardroom for business scaling.