The Operations organization at Niantic serves a mission critical role in defining, executing, and scaling outstanding processes in service of our player, advertiser, and emerging development needs.

As VP, Operations, you will be responsible for the strategic leadership and tactical execution of our i) customer support, ii) data operations, iii) advertising operations, and iv) trust & safety efforts. You will lead a global organization of 20+ professionals to achieve key product and business objectives while exceeding our player, advertiser, and internal customer expectations. Your team serves as the voice of the customer, whether player or advertiser, and is responsible for high-severity customer incidents and sensitive customer situations. At the same time, your team supports emerging internal product development requirements and is responsible for establishing operational infrastructure to enable new innovations in mapping and augmented reality.

The role requires a strong vision for Niantic’s player, advertiser, and internal development support experience and enthusiasm for creating order out of the undefined.

Your success as a manager will be measured by the professional development of the team members as well as your ability to coach and lead them in defining and delivering new operations effort to support experience to our players, advertisers, and internal customers. 

Responsibilities

• Define Niantic's operations strategy and partner with leaders across the company to drive improvements and implementations of efficient operations and cost-effective systems globally.
• Direct and lead all aspects of Niantic’s operations function, including strategies, policies, objectives, initiatives, vendors and people for customer support, data operations, advertiser operations, and trust and safety.
• Coach and mentor the people on the team. Promote environment of professional development and employee engagement. Lead and encourage the team to provide the highest level of customer service.
• Define our customer experience vision, ensuring alignment with our company’s strategic direction and ability to drive economies of scale in service delivery.
• Develop clear strategic roadmaps for scaled customer service delivery and player experience.
• Translate strategic roadmaps into business plans. Drive alignment across organization on experience details. Develop tangible goals and clear accountabilities. Lead plan execution and report on plan performance.
• Introduce new and innovative technologies that improve our service delivery/experience and drive customer satisfaction to enhance Niantic’s brand.
• Evaluate, select and develop outsourced vendor partners. Partner with vendors to deliver customer experience to established performance standards.
• Establish clear goals for the team. Foster a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. Drive team performance to deliver results.
• Create clear metrics for defining our relationship with customers and define targets for the organization. Measure performance against metrics that balance speed and efficiency against the client experience.
• Evolve reporting to assess impact of customer experience metrics on Niantic’s business and brand.
• Serve as subject matter authority cross functionally. Act as the voice of our customer. Advocate for our most significant player and advertiser challenges and drive prioritization with our product and engineering teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited institution; MBA preferred.
• 15+ years experience in customer-facing operations.
• 9+ years experience leading customer-facing operations teams.
• Mission oriented and motivated by Niantic’s goal of using technology to get people outside into the physical world to experience real world social interaction.
• Relevant work experience in the outsourcing industry, including setting and driving vendor strategy, handling direct vendor operations, driving process improvement and negotiating commercial agreements.
• Previous experience building and scaling a customer-facing support or services role within a tech company.
• Previous experience leading a globally-distributed, high-performing team in a fast-paced, high growth environment.
• Experience in strategic roadmap development; business planning and budget management; vendor operations, and project management; business process improvement; business performance tracking and reporting.
• Strong management toolkit with a reputation for leaving thriving employees in your wake.
• Deep knowledge of emerging and established CX practices.
• Interest in and familiarity with mapping, augmented reality, and gaming.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Join the Niantic team!

Niantic is the world’s leading AR technology company, sparking creative and engaging journeys in the real world. Our products inspire outdoor exploration, exercise, and meaningful social interaction.
Originally formed at Google in 2011, we became an independent company in 2015 with a strong group of investors including Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, and Alsop Louie Partners. Our current titles include pioneering global-control game Ingress, record-breaking AR game Pokémon GO, and recently released third title, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. 
Niantic is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We believe that cultivating a workplace where our people are supported and included is essential to creating great products our community will love. Our mission emphasizes seeking and hiring diverse voices, including those who are traditionally underrepresented in the technology industry, and we consider this to be one of the most important values we hold close.

We're a hard-working, fun, and exciting group who value intellectual curiosity and a passion for problem-solving! We have growing offices located in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Bellevue, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Hamburg, and Zurich.