Director of Operations and Facilities
26 days ago
Jersey City
Job Description Title: Director of Operations & Facilities Location: Jersey City, NJ area (multi-campus) Reports to: Chief Operating Officer Salary: $85,000 - $95,000 plus bonus We're a growing, mission-driven early childhood and elementary program dedicated to creating exceptional learning environments for children from infancy through elementary years. Our culture is warm, our standards are high, and our growth is thoughtful and intentional. As we scale to serve more families across multiple campuses, we're searching for an exceptional Director of Operations & Facilities, someone smart, hungry to make a real difference, and humble enough to serve the mission while building something lasting. This is a rare opportunity to become the operational backbone of a growing organization. You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with the COO and leadership team to turn ambitious vision into reliable, scalable reality. The role is deeply strategic and proudly hands-on: you'll design systems that last, fix what breaks (permanently), lead major projects, and protect the environment where children learn, staff thrive, and families trust us completely. What You'll Own and Build Operational Excellence & Scalable Systems • Design and continuously improve school-wide operations across all campuses — enrollment, attendance, purchasing, scheduling, records, compliance — so everything runs smoothly even as we grow rapidly, • Partner with campus leaders to diagnose root causes, implement lasting solutions, and eliminate recurring chaos, • Own end-to-end facilities operations: maintenance, vendor management, safety, cleanliness, emergency preparedness, • Lead renovation, construction, and capital improvement projects from vision through ribbon-cutting, • Oversee all tech systems, hardware, software, networking, and vendors, • Drive upgrades, security, and user-friendly implementations that make staff lives easier, • Partner closely with COO, leadership, HR, finance, admissions, academics, and food service, • Supervise operations team members with clarity, high expectations, and genuine support, • Manage insurance, audits, licensing, documentation, and regulatory excellence, • Monitor spending, negotiate vendors, and identify cost efficiencies without cutting corners, • Build and maintain meaningful metrics, dashboards, and reporting for leadership, • Has 5+ years of operations and/or facilities leadership in complex, multi-site environments, • Holds a Bachelors degree (advanced degree a plus), • Is exceptionally organized and detail-oriented while never losing the big picture, • Thrives managing multiple priorities and timelines with calm, practical confidence, • Holds people (vendors and teammates alike) to high standards with fairness and directness, • Communicates with clarity and warmth, excellent written and verbal skills, • Is tech-savvy, systems-minded, and quick to learn new tools, • Brings optimism, accountability, and humility to everything, you celebrate team wins, own mistakes, and constantly seek better ways If you love creating order from complexity, take pride in quiet excellence, get energy from solving hard problems, and want to pour your talent into an organization that truly changes lives, we want to talk. We especially encourage applications from people who are ambitious about impact, hungry to learn and grow, and humble enough to serve something bigger than themselves.