Director of Fulfillment Operations

Responsibilities

• Own Cove's in‑house fulfillment operation end to end — receiving, putaway, inventory, pick/pack/ship, and returns — with direct accountability for getting every order out accurately and on time.
• Lead our facility move this fall and design the layout, slotting, and workflows for the next stage of scale.
• Select and implement a WMS and the systems discipline that take us off manual workflows — directly attacking picking as our primary bottleneck.
• Negotiate pricing, lead times, capacity, and terms with parcel carriers, packaging/materials suppliers, and equipment vendors.
• Build and own the KPI and scorecard framework — on‑time ship, order accuracy, inventory accuracy, units‑per‑hour, cost per order, labor productivity, and safety.
• Manage inventory and operational risk and peak/Q4 readiness in partnership with Merchandising and Finance.
• Identify and eliminate operational bottlenecks, single‑point‑of‑failure risks, and margin leakage.
• Build and maintain operating dashboards for fulfillment, cost, labor, and vendor performance.
• Drive continuous improvement across pick/pack, packaging, labor models, and right‑sized automation.
• Build and lead Cove's warehouse team — shift managers, inventory control, and zone leads beneath you, so the operation scales on systems and people, not on you alone.

Requirements

• A seasoned operator with 7–12+ years in fulfillment, warehouse, or DTC operations — ideally in a high‑growth DTC or apparel brand.
• Someone who has run an owned distribution center bigger than ours and taken an operation through a step‑change in daily order volume.
• Hands‑on with WMS implementation/migration, slotting, and labor‑management systems.
• A strong negotiator who gets better pricing, terms, and performance out of carriers and vendors.
• Data‑driven and financially literate — you live in dashboards and manage cost, margin, and service‑level KPIs.
• Low ego, high ownership — the most organized person in the room and the one grabbing a scanner or unloading a container when the moment calls for it.
• Comfortable in a fast‑moving, founder‑led environment with minimal bureaucracy.
• Aligned with Cove's tone: bold, purpose‑driven, no corporate fluff.

Nice to Haves

• You've stood up a facility move or new‑site buildout before.
• Apparel / soft‑goods background with high SKU counts and size/color variants.
• You know how to right‑size automation — when conveyance, pick‑to‑light, or packing automation pays off at a given volume and when it doesn't.
• Experience supporting limited‑edition or drop‑based retail models.