Head of R&D Operations

About the Role

We are looking for a senior operator to drive organizational effectiveness across our R&D organization, covering Product, Design, Engineering, and QA. This role partners directly with the CTO to ensure the organization operates with clarity, speed, and accountability, without adding unnecessary hierarchy.
You will not define product or technical direction, own the product roadmap, set engineering architecture, make final compensation or promotion decisions, or manage Product or Engineering teams directly. Instead, you will ensure the system around how we build, prioritize, and execute is consistently strong and scalable. As AI continues to blur the lines between roles and accelerate how teams operate, this role is critical to keeping a clear view of what is happening across R&D and ensuring we scale without losing structure or momentum.
This is an individual contributor role. You will not manage a team. Your impact will come from the systems you design, the visibility you create, and the influence you exert across senior leaders.

Your Responsibilities

• Design and run performance processes including quarterly reviews and annual cycles, in partnership with the R&D HR Business Partner

• Ensure consistent quality of feedback, expectations, and career development across teams

• Provide the CTO and R&D leadership with structured insight into top performers and emerging leaders, underperformance and risk areas, promotion readiness, and organizational gaps

• Maintain a real-time view of organizational health across Product, Design, Engineering, and QA

• Identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and misalignment early, and proactively propose solutions

• Partner with Product, Design, and Engineering leaders on headcount planning, hiring prioritization, and skill gap analysis

• Ensure resources are aligned to the most critical business priorities

• Design and continuously improve how the organization runs, including planning cycles, cross-team coordination, and decision-making forums

• Ensure priorities are clear, dependencies are managed, and teams can execute without friction

• Act as a connective layer between Product, Design, Engineering, QA, and GTM teams

• Ensure consistent communication of priorities and changes across the organization

• Improve how work flows across teams without becoming a bottleneck

Your Profile

• 8 to 12+ years in Product, Engineering, Technical Program Management, or R&D Operations roles

• Former engineering leader, product leader, or senior Technical Program Manager who moved into broader organizational roles

• Strong understanding of how modern SaaS product and engineering organizations operate

• Ability to engage credibly with senior technical and product leaders

• Proven experience improving organizational processes and execution at scale

• High emotional intelligence with the ability to influence without formal authority

• Structured thinker who can turn ambiguity into clear systems

• High AI literacy, with hands-on use of AI tools in your own workflow. The more you can do with AI, the better

• Someone who enjoys making systems work better rather than owning a specific domain

• Comfortable operating in a flat, high-accountability environment as an individual contributor

• Located in the Americas