Associate Director - Operations - Instawork Robotics Labs

About IRL (Instawork Robotics Labs)

Researchers at UC Berkeley have identified a “100,000-year data gap” - the gulf between what trained AI language models and what physical robots actually have to learn from. Closing that gap is the defining infrastructure challenge of the physical AI era. IRL is Instawork’s answer to it. We deploy skilled workers into real commercial and residential environments - kitchens, warehouses, hotel floors, homes - to capture the high-fidelity task data that the world’s leading Robotics labs use to train their foundation models. Read more here.

Build. Scale. Operate.

We’re looking for a hardcore operations leader who thrives in the real world — someone who has built and scaled large, distributed operations from the ground up and knows what it takes to turn an idea into an operation that actually works.

This is not a role for someone who only manages dashboards, processes, or strategy decks.

We’re looking for a builder and operator, someone who can start with a blank sheet of paper, build the team, design the processes, solve problems on the ground, and scale the operation without losing speed or quality.

You’ll be operating in an environment where things change quickly, the problems are often ambiguous, and there is rarely a playbook to follow.

What You’ll Do

• Build and scale operations from the ground up — define the operating model, build processes, hire teams, establish metrics, and create the systems needed to scale.
• Own large, distributed, real-world operations across multiple locations, teams, and workflows.
• Build high-performing teams — hire exceptional operators, develop leaders, set a high bar for execution, and create a culture of ownership and accountability.
• Turn chaos into structure — identify operational bottlenecks, build repeatable processes, and continuously improve how the organization operates.
• Be relentlessly execution-oriented — when something breaks, you don’t wait for someone else to solve it. You get to the ground, understand the problem, and figure it out.
• Operate at speed — priorities will change, plans will move, and unexpected problems will come up. You’ll need to make decisions quickly and keep the team moving.
• Build for scale — design processes and teams that can handle 10x growth, not just solve today’s problem.
• Own outcomes, not just activities — set clear operational metrics and relentlessly drive performance, quality, productivity, and efficiency.

What We’re Looking For

You’ve built before.

• Significant experience building and running large, distributed, real-world operations.
• Experience in e-commerce, logistics, marketplaces, field operations, fast-scaling startups, hardware-adjacent businesses, or other operationally intensive environments.
• A track record of building teams and operating models from scratch, not just inheriting established ones.
• Strong people leadership experience, with the ability to build teams that are highly accountable, ambitious, and deeply committed to the mission.
• Extremely high ownership — you naturally think, “I’ll figure it out.”
• Extreme agility and resilience.
• Plans change → you adapt, rather than freeze.
• Pressure increases → you become clearer and more decisive.
• Something breaks → you go after the root cause.
• Strong operational judgment — you know when to build a process, when to break one, and when to simply get things done.
• Comfortable working with incomplete information and making decisions without waiting for perfect data.
• A strong bias toward action, with the ability to balance speed, quality, cost, and scale.

The Kind of Leader We Want

You’re the person who:

• Can walk into a messy operation and figure out what needs to happen next.
• Has built teams from a handful of people into large, high-performing organizations.
• Can spend the morning looking at operational metrics and the afternoon solving a problem on the ground.
• Doesn’t need a perfect org structure or playbook to get started.
• Sets an extremely high bar — but earns trust by giving the team the support, context, and ownership to meet it.
• Builds teams that want to run through walls for them.
• Is calm when things are chaotic and gets more focused when the pressure goes up.
• Gets excited by operational complexity rather than intimidated by it.
• Has experience with robotics, AI data collection, or hardware operations

Bonus, Not Required

Experience or exposure to:

• Supply chain or manufacturing operations
• Field workforce operations
• Marketplace operations
• Multi-city / multi-location scaling
• Building operations in an early-stage or rapidly scaling startup