Senior Manager, Operations Success

The best jobs are often restricted to a few wealthy cities, but talent exists everywhere. Oyster set out to change this by launching a global employment platform that enables companies to hire, pay, and support talent anywhere.

We’re proof that a strong, engaged culture doesn't require an office. Since January 2020, Oyster has:

🌏 Built a distributed team of 400+ across 60+ countries

👩‍💻 Featured in Forbes as #9 in FlexJobs Top 30 Companies for remote jobs

🌈 Formed a diverse leadership team and a workforce that’s 60% female

🏆 Earned top employee engagement scores

🦄 Raised $286 million; valued at $1.2 billion

💚 Achieved B Corp status in 2023

Our momentum shows the power of global employment, and we’re just getting started! If you want to help us drive change and work remotely, we’d love for you to apply!

Location: While this position is posted in a specific location, all of Oyster’s positions are fully remote, and you can work from home. Forever. To create the best experience for our new hire, this role requires that you be based within 0 / +4 UTC.

We are looking for a Senior Manager, Operations Success to lead and develop a team responsible for managing and optimizing relationships with our external vendor partners. This role will oversee Vendor Managers who manage key partnerships across a number of business areas, including legal, compliance, H&S, Benefits, and EOR that support our global operations.

This leader will play a critical role in ensuring our operations vendor ecosystem is high-performing, scalable, and aligned with business goals. You and the team will focus on building strong, strategic partnerships that create mutual value for both Oyster and our partners.

The ideal candidate brings a strong background in partnership management, vendor strategy, and negotiation, combined with the ability to lead teams, influence cross-functional stakeholders, and use data to drive strategic decision-making.

This role sits at the intersection of strategy, operations, and relationship management and will work closely with teams across Go-to-Market (GTM), Legal, Finance, and Operations.

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Individual Contributors who manage strategic external partners.

• Build a high-performing team culture focused on ownership, accountability, and partnership excellence.

• Provide guidance and support to the team on complex partner issues, escalations, and negotiations.

• Enable the team to develop clear processes, playbooks, and frameworks to support consistent vendor management practices.

• Lead change management initiatives, helping teams adopt new processes, tools, or ways of working at scale.

Vendor Partnership Strategy

• Define and execute the vendor partnership strategy to ensure vendors effectively support business growth and operational needs.

• Identify opportunities to optimize vendor performance, expand partnerships, and drive efficiencies.

• Develop scalable frameworks for vendor selection, onboarding, performance monitoring, and renewal decisions.

• Ensure vendor partnerships deliver strong outcomes while maintaining sustainable commercial arrangements.

Relationship Management & Negotiation

• Build and maintain strong executive-level relationships with key vendor partners.

• Lead complex vendor negotiations and support Vendor Managers in structuring commercially sound, mutually beneficial agreements in collaboration with Legal.

• Drive a “win-win” partnership approach, balancing business needs with long-term partner success.

• Manage vendor escalations and facilitate resolution of complex operational or contractual challenges.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Act as a strategic partner to internal teams, including GTM, Legal, Finance, and Operations.

• Ensure vendor capabilities, limitations, and opportunities are clearly understood across the organization.

• Partner with relevant teams to identify opportunities for process improvement and scalable vendor solutions.

• Work closely with Legal and Finance to ensure vendor agreements and service delivery meet compliance, risk, and financial objectives.

Data, Insights & Strategic Decision-Making

• Use data and analytics to evaluate vendor performance, cost efficiency, and service quality.

• Develop reporting frameworks and KPIs to monitor vendor performance and identify improvement opportunities.

• Provide leadership with insights on vendor ecosystem performance and recommendations for strategic changes.

• 8+ years of experience in customer success/strategy, partnership management, vendor management, or strategic partnerships.

• Experience managing external vendors or partner ecosystems in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.

• Demonstrated experience leading and developing teams.

• Strong track record of leading negotiations and managing commercial agreements.

• Experience working cross-functionally with teams such as GTM, Legal, Finance, and Operations.

• Exceptional relationship-building and stakeholder management skills.

• Strong analytical and strategic thinking, with the ability to translate insights into action.

• Excellent negotiation and conflict resolution abilities.

• Ability to balance commercial objectives with long-term partnership success.

• Strong communication and influencing skills, including working with senior stakeholders.

• Experience working with various types of vendors, including legal, compliance, H&S, Benefits, and EOR.

• Experience in high-growth or global organizations.

• A reliable home internet connection (or be able to get one)

Our values guide the work we do, the decisions we make, and the culture that makes us special. We make it happen. We drive change. We build and give trust, and we are a united team.

Our mission is to create a more equal world, one global hire at a time. Everything we do ladders up to our mission, and that doesn’t just mean building software. We develop programs, participate in workshops, and create dedicated teams to ensure we successfully support companies and knowledge workers in this new world of work. 

We embrace asynchronous communication and collaborative work and share our practices in the Oyster Public HQ to help other global teams learn from our experiences.

With diverse locations, cultures, and needs, we created How YOU Work; a program supporting your whole human experience at Oyster:

• Work from anywhere: Oyster has no borders or HQ. As long as work is timely, your team is supported, and you're authorized to work where you live, you can work from anywhere.

• Paid time off: Enjoy 40 days off per year (including holidays and vacation), or more if required by your country.

• Mental health support: Access Plumm, our mental well-being service.

• Wellbeing allowance: Each month, receive a wellbeing allowance in your ThanksBen wallet. Spend it on a wide range of options; see the benefits catalogue for ideas.

• Flexible parental leave: All new parents are eligible for at least three months’ paid leave, with job protection for up to 12 months or as required locally.

• WFH stipend: Receive a stipend for your laptop and home office equipment to get you set up quickly.

We embrace diverse perspectives and intentionally build our product and company with an inclusive, global mindset. We encourage you to apply, even if you don’t meet every criterion, and are committed to a trust-based, thriving environment.

Oyster is committed to ensuring equal opportunity of employment for qualified persons with disabilities and actively fosters an inclusive work environment. If you require reasonable accommodations throughout the recruiting process, please email [email protected] with the subject line: Interview Accommodations.

Our available positions are on our careers page. Our team will only contact you from an @oysterhr.com email, and we will never ask for money as part of an interview process or job offer. If you receive a suspicious email about Oyster jobs or are directed to a site other than www.oysterhr.com/careers, please report it via our Compliance and Ethics Helpline.