Manager, Operational Foundations

About the Commercial Strategy Team

The Commercial Strategy team sits within the Business Development & Commercial Programs org and is responsible for helping take ideas from 0 to 1 by leading strategic initiatives and bets, and partnering cross functionally with other teams to test, experiment, and implement new strategies. The Partner Operations sub-team is the engine behind Thumbtack's partnerships business. We build the scalable systems, processes, and infrastructure that turn partner opportunities into operational reality. Beyond running the day-to-day, we lead high-priority strategic initiatives and early-stage pilots that don't fit neatly into existing lanes, coordinate cross-functionally to align workflows and ownership for new capabilities, and drive the transition from pilot to scalable operations. When we do our job well, partners grow, capabilities expand, and revenue grows.

About the Role

As the Manager, Operational Foundations, you will lead the team responsible for the systems, processes, and support capabilities that make partnerships easier to launch and scale. Reporting to the Senior Manager of Partnership Operations, you’ll manage a globally distributed team of three to four people across the U.S. and the Philippines and own core functions spanning partner onboarding, integrations, partner finance, reporting, and internal tooling.

You will own the developer and partner onboarding experience from application through launch, establishing clear acceptance criteria, service levels, approval workflows, and performance measures. You will work closely with Product and Engineering to remove integration blockers, improve our APIs and partner-facing capabilities, and turn recurring support issues into scalable solutions and product insights.

You will also set the internal tooling and automation strategy for Business Development, improving how teams use platforms such as Salesforce and Salesloft while identifying opportunities to apply new tools and AI to existing workflows. This is a high-impact player-coach role for a systems-minded operator who can improve today’s execution while building the durable operating foundation required for future growth.

What you’ll do

• Own developer and partner onboarding: Lead the end-to-end intake process from application through launch, defining acceptance criteria, review SLAs, approval workflows, ownership, and handoffs.

• Improve onboarding performance: Track application-to-launch time, conversion, drop-off points, and time in stage; identify bottlenecks and drive improvements that reduce time to integration.

• Lead integration support: Oversee the team that resolves partner integration issues and establish a clear, prioritized escalation path with Product and Engineering for API issues, bugs, and feature gaps.

• Scale the support experience: Build a knowledge base and self-serve troubleshooting resources that improve the partner experience, deflect repeat tickets, and allow support to scale efficiently.

• Turn operational insights into product improvements: Report on ticket volume, resolution time, satisfaction, and recurring issue themes; quantify systemic problems and translate them into clear roadmap input for Product and Engineering.

• Own Business Development tooling and automation: Set the strategy for Salesforce, Salesloft, ticketing systems, dashboards, API monitoring, and AI-enabled workflows that improve visibility and scale the organization without linear headcount growth.

• Lead core Partner Operations functions: Manage and develop a globally distributed team responsible for partner finance, reporting, onboarding, integration support, and Business Development workflow enablement, with clear priorities and accountability for SLA targets.

• 5+ years of experience in partnership operations, developer operations, technical program management, business operations, revenue operations, or a related field.

• 2+ years of people-management experience, with a demonstrated ability to set direction, develop talent, and lead a team of operators.

• Experience designing and improving onboarding, implementation, or support processes, including clear workflows, service levels, ownership, and performance measures.

• Technical fluency with APIs, integrations, data flows, and business systems, with the ability to partner effectively with Product and Engineering.

• Experience developing tooling and automation strategies across platforms such as Salesforce, Salesloft, ticketing systems, reporting tools, or AI-enabled workflows.

• Strong analytical and program-management skills, with the ability to diagnose root causes, prioritize competing needs, and drive complex initiatives from concept through execution.

• Clear, influential communication skills and an owner mentality, with strong learning agility, a bias for action, and a low-ego approach to leadership and collaboration.

Expected salary ranges

• For candidates living in Ontario and British Columbia, total cash compensation (base salary + variable pay, if applicable) range for the role is currently $120,700.00 - $156,200.00.