Chief of Staff to COO, Business Operations Lead

Hike Medical is building the defining company in musculoskeletal care. We sit at the intersection of AI, robotics, and healthcare, operating across three product lines: a proprietary AI-vision platform that turns a 30 second web-based foot scan into custom 3D-printed orthotics, an AI agent platform that automates the entire DME workflow from pre-visit processing to claims and revenue cycle, and SoleForge, our vertically integrated 3D printing factory producing custom medical devices at a scale the industry has never seen.

Our customers are both the largest employers on earth and the biggest companies in orthotics and prosthetics. On the clinical side, we're live across the industry's largest national providers. On the employer side, Fortune 50 companies trust us to protect their on-their-feet workforces.

But custom insoles are just the wedge. Our long-term vision is bionics: AI-designed, robotically manufactured orthotic and prosthetic devices at scale, replacing a fragmented, manual industry that hasn't changed in decades. Insoles today, full DME tomorrow, bionics by 2040. Read the full vision at bionics2040.com.

We've stealthily raised $22M through Seed and Series A backed by top-tier investors who invested early in companies like OpenAI, Anduril, and Mercury. We run a fast, results first, high ownership culture out of our new SF Rincon Hill office. If you want to work on problems that sit at the frontier of AI, manufacturing, and healthcare, this is the place.

You'll be the strategic and operational right hand to the founding team, reporting directly to the COO (Jerry Tang) — sitting at the intersection of planning, metrics-driven accountability, and large-scale execution. This role is for a strategy and operations athlete who moves fluidly between building the framework and getting their hands dirty to ship it.

The role spans four critical functions: running the company's management cadence, driving performance culture through data and truth-telling, program-managing major operational rollouts, and owning select partnership relationships. If you've ever been the person in the room who sees the system everyone else is inside of — this is your seat.

This role is perfect for someone who is:

• Energized by operational rigor and the challenge of scaling a hardware-meets-software business

• A systems thinker who can define KPIs, own dashboards, and run a weekly review cadence without being told to

• Comfortable doing the analytical work themselves — not just managing others to do it

What We're Looking For

These are not hard-and-fast requirements — we care more about ownership, execution, and judgment than checking every box.

• 5–10 years total experience, with at least 2–3 years of direct exposure to manufacturing, supply chain, or industrial operations

• Has worked inside a company actively going through scale — not just a mature, stable operation

• Ideally has served as the right hand to a GM, COO, or CEO before — knows how to operate in that leverage role

• Fluency in unit economics, COGS structure, and contribution margin analysis

• Experience running S&OP or analogous cross-functional planning processes

• Understands factory economics: yield, throughput, capacity utilization, capex payback

• Proven ability to structure ambiguous problems into a rigorous framework and drive to a decision

• Experience designing and implementing leading and lagging indicator systems

• Strong executive presence — equally effective with operators on the floor and founders in the boardroom

Ideal Background

The best candidates tend to come from one of four places:

1. Ops or Industrial Engineering at a scaled hardware/manufacturing company — Thinks in systems and constraints. Apple, Tesla, SpaceX, Medtronic, or similar. Has seen what rigorous operational excellence actually looks like at scale.

2. Military (engineering or logistics) → MBA → ops — Execution discipline, cross-functional influence without authority, and genuine comfort with ambiguity.

3. Management consulting → ops or manufacturing role — Gets strategy and structure, and has been tested in implementation. Work product should show operational results, not just decks.

4. Private equity or portfolio ops — Wired to find COGS and efficiency opportunities, drive metrics discipline, and manage toward milestones. Blend of financial and operational instincts.

What we're not looking for: pure finance backgrounds without operational exposure, or generalist chiefs of staff whose work has been primarily coordination.

Primary Responsibilities

• Management Cadence: Develop and operate the company's executive operating rhythm — planning cycles, reviews, and decision-making forums

• Metrics & Truth-Telling: Apolitically drive performance culture through data, dashboards, and honest analysis — with both numbers and anecdotes

• Program Management: Lead large-scale operational rollouts, cross-functional initiatives, and crisis response

• Partnership Ownership: Own select partner and supplier relationships end-to-end

• Operating Model: Build and maintain the company operating model; own make/buy/partner analysis and investment cases

• Systems Design: Design and run company-wide and operations-wide KPI systems from definition through weekly and monthly review cadence

What You'll Get

• Competitive cash compensation + equity

• Full medical, dental, and vision coverage

• $15K relocation bonus if needed

• Daily collaboration with the founding team and senior leadership

• Free custom insoles (of course…)