Role: Field Operations Coordinator / Customer Success

Phase: Post-pilot — first full-time hire Engagement type: Full-time employee Budget: $50,000–$65,000 base salary When to hire: After first charter partner signs; before scaling to 3+ pilots Status: Not yet relevant — do not hire until charter partner pilot succeeds

Why This Role Is the First Post-Pilot Hire

After a successful pilot, the business has one paying customer and a validated product. The next problem is not technical — it is operational. Running three or four simultaneous pilot deployments requires:

Shipping and tracking badge hardware to multiple customer sites
Coordinating equipment surveys and tag installation across customer fleet vehicles and equipment
Onboarding customer crews (the worker introduction, not just a documentation email)
Tracking badge uptime and alerting customers when a badge goes offline
Managing battery replacement, lost badge replacement, and tag relocation
Being the primary customer contact for day-to-day questions

The founder cannot do this and simultaneously sell, build the product, manage integrations, and handle finance. Without this hire, the founder becomes a logistics coordinator for three customers and loses the ability to grow to ten.

This role is not glamorous. It is the most important operational hire in the business.

Responsibilities

Hardware Deployment Operations

Receive, inventory, test, and ship badge hardware and BLE tags to customer sites
Track every badge (by serial number) and every tag (by MAC address) to its assigned customer and equipment unit
Coordinate with customers to schedule deployment day
Conduct or coordinate the on-site hardware installation and worker introduction
Document equipment tag installation (photo of tag on equipment, serial number, mounting method)

Customer Onboarding

Guide new customers from signed agreement through first good week of data
Conduct the badge introduction with the field crew (directly, or by training the customer supervisor to do it)
Confirm Power BI dashboard access and that the customer can run their weekly report without founder assistance
Identify any data anomalies in the first two weeks and escalate to engineering

Ongoing Customer Success

Weekly badge uptime review for all active customers
Alert customer when a badge is offline for more than 48 hours
Coordinate hardware replacements (damaged badges, missing tags)
Quarterly check-in call with each customer (owner or ops manager level)
Collect customer feedback and translate it into product improvement requests

Logistics and Inventory

Maintain badge and tag inventory levels
Coordinate with hardware vendor or contract manufacturer for restocking
Manage battery replacement cycle (schedule and execution)
Process hardware returns from churned or paused customers
Track RMA (return merchandise authorization) and repair status

Skills Required

Required:

3+ years in field operations, customer success, logistics, or similar role
Direct experience coordinating with field crews or field-based workers
Proficient with Excel or Google Sheets for tracking inventory and deployment status
Strong written and verbal communication
Comfortable with ambiguity — this is an early-stage company with evolving processes

Strongly preferred:

Background in landscape management, property services, construction, or field service industries — someone who has worked with field crews, not just with software
Experience with IoT hardware deployment or field-deployed device management
Power BI or similar dashboard experience (can train the customer, not just use the tool)

NOT required:

Software engineering background
Prior startup experience
Sales experience (the founder handles sales at this stage)

What Good Looks Like in Month 3

All active customers have >=90% badge uptime with no unresolved offline alerts >48 hrs
New customer deployment checklist is documented, owned, and executed without founder involvement
Every customer had a check-in in the last 30 days
Hardware inventory is tracked in a shared document the founder can access in under 60 seconds
Zero customers have raised the same logistics complaint twice

Compensation Structure

Component	Amount
Base salary	$50,000–$65,000
Benefits	Health insurance contribution pending company size and revenue
Equity	0.25–0.5% (4-year vest, 1-year cliff)
Performance bonus	Optional: tied to customer retention and badge uptime targets

Equity note: at this stage, offering meaningful equity to operational hires is important because the cash comp is below market for experienced ops professionals. Be honest about it and make the equity real.

Where to Find

Priority 1 — LinkedIn Search: “customer success manager field service”, “operations coordinator IoT”, “landscaping operations manager”. Filter for candidates in Atlanta or willing to work in a hybrid arrangement.

Priority 2 — Industry network Former colleagues from the founder’s landscape management career who have moved into ops management roles.

Priority 3 — Atlanta operations community Startup operations roles post frequently in Atlanta Tech Village and TechSquare job boards.

Known Risks

Risk: The hire is customer-service oriented but not field-operations capable. Mitigation: The interview must include a scenario: “A badge for a customer’s crew went offline 4 days ago. The customer hasn’t noticed yet but their payroll is Friday. Walk me through what you do.” The right hire asks: what is the badge’s last known status? Is there a replacement in stock? Can I overnight ship one today?

Risk: The role becomes a customer service inbox rather than a proactive ops function. Mitigation: Define uptime monitoring as a daily proactive task, not a reactive one. The coordinator should be alerting customers — not waiting to be called.