Full-Time | Remote (Australia-Based) | $120K to $140K+ plus super
Who We Are
Gardeners Crate is an Australian DTC brand on a mission: to give people their independence back in the garden. We build cordless garden tools that let everyday Aussies look after their own garden again, without the heavy, awkward tools getting in the way or relying on anyone else.
For our customers, that independence means everything. They’re not just buyers, they’re a community who got their confidence back, their garden back, and in many cases a piece of themselves back. We move fast, we care deeply, and we’re building something worth being part of.
How We Think
Everything comes back to the customer. A better manual is a customer who succeeds instead of struggling. Never running out of stock is being there the moment someone’s ready to take back control of their garden. Tight quality is a promise kept. We want someone who looks at the backend and sees the customer at the end of every part of it.
Why This Role Exists
The business is growing fast, and the engine behind it, everything that gets the product to the customer, needs one person who owns it completely. This is a role for builders. Some of it is messy or unfinished, and that’s the point. You’re not here to hold a checklist, you’re here to find what’s exposed, fix it, build the systems that make it run, and get ahead of problems before they land. You’ll be the authority on operations, the person the whole backend runs through, trusted to make the calls and build it your way. A few years from now, you look back at an operation running at real scale and know you built those systems. As the brand grows, this role grows into leading your own operations team.
The Reality of This Role
Right now it’s a focused range, a main product and core accessories, one main manufacturer, a clean supply chain. That’s deliberate, and it’s about to grow: once the operation is solid, we expand the range, and you build the systems that let us add products without the wheels coming off. Most of this is oversight and building smart systems, not doing everything by hand.
If you’ve run more complexity with less support, this will feel like room to build.
This role is hands-on and messy by design. If you’ve only ever run operations inside a big company, with teams and process handed to you, this won’t be the right fit, and that’s okay. This is for someone who wants to be in it, building.
What You’ll Own
You own the operational engine end to end:
- Supplier, manufacturing and product: manage the manufacturer relationship as the main point of contact, staying on top of production timelines, tooling, cost and terms, tracking payments and invoices against what’s agreed, and getting granular on the BOM. You understand the product well enough to hold the manufacturer accountable, keep costs sharp.
- Quality control and returns: read the defect and return patterns, track defects by batch, spot what’s really going on, and work with the manufacturer and our QC partners to fix it so returns keep falling, feeding what you learn back into the product.
- Certifications, compliance and legal: own a real regulatory surface, product certifications, compliance, IP and insurance, keeping it all on track and moving. The rhythm is mostly coordination with lawyers & compliance agency that comes alive around launches.
- Freight, 3PL and fulfilment: own freight and the 3PL relationship end to end, manage them against clear SLAs and hold them accountable on dispatch, accuracy, delivery performance and cost. Coordinate inbound freight from China with forwarder, track shipments and ETAs, consolidate where it cuts cost, negotiate rates as volume scales, and flag delays early.
- Inventory, forecasting and ordering: own inventory end to end, forecast demand from sales velocity, the marketing calendar and ad spend, and decide when to place each order factoring in lead times and buffer, keeping the right stock available without tying up cash. Own pre-orders and store accuracy, keep manuals and the unboxing premium, and report stock status regularly.
- Customer service: a team and supervisor are in place, you sit ahead of them as the final say and the person who keeps raising the standard.
- Systems, documentation and finance: build clear SOPs so nothing lives only in your head, keep a landed cost tracker per order, and run a simple ops dashboard so the founders see stock, shipments, supplier issues and cost at a glance. You don’t need to be an accountant, but you should be genuinely comfortable with numbers, keeping a clean enough view of costs to make sound, timely calls and know where the money’s going.
You’ll get the full detail before you start.
How We Work: AI-First
We build operations as live, AI-assisted systems wherever possible, tools that pull the data, run the numbers and surface what needs attention, rather than doing it all by hand. We want someone genuinely tech-savvy who reaches for AI instinctively. It’s a big part of what makes this remit manageable, and the leverage that separates the best operators from the rest.
What Success Looks Like
The operation just works, quietly, reliably, better every month.
- First week: understand the business, then bring us your plan of what you’ve found and how you’d tackle it. We shape it together, no task list handed to you.
- First month: everything baselined with real numbers, the gaps mapped, a couple of things already improving.
- Month two: on top of the whole operation, systems built and running.
- Ongoing: running it well is expected, every month you bring at least one real improvement. “Built” never means “done.”
Who You Are
An owner, not an executor. You take a broad, messy remit and make it run, get ahead of problems instead of reacting, care about the customer in every decision, and move fast. Above all you’re hardworking and genuinely hungry to grow with the business, not just hold a steady seat.
Essential
- Real operations experience in a small DTC or ecommerce brand, owning the whole operation, not a slice of it.
- Experience managing or coordinating a supplier or manufacturer relationship (overseas or China a plus), timelines, cost, documentation and keeping quality on track. You’ve owned the relationship and kept quality on track.
- Strong across 3PL, freight and inventory, forecasting demand, timing reorders, and managing stock, replenishment and risk.
- Genuinely strong with data: you read it, trust it and decide off it rather than gut feel. This matters more than any single line item.
- A track record of building operations, systems and SOPs from scratch.
- Hardworking, hungry to grow, and completely comfortable running everything remotely and accountably. Australia-based.
A real plus: if you’ve run operations through a genuine growth or scaling phase, seen things break under volume (forecasts off, inventory messy, 3PL blowing out) and fixed them, that scar tissue stands out.
You’ll own and grow into (we give you full context, these aren’t prerequisites)
- Quality control and third-party QC coordination.
- Product certification and compliance, navigation and coordination, not deep regulatory expertise.
- Deeper finance ownership, growing into a fuller view over time.
If you’ve run most of this but not all, and you’ve got the data instinct and hunger to own the rest fast, we want to hear from you. Mindset and core operating ability matter more than a perfect checklist.
Desirable
- Experience sourcing or qualifying new suppliers.
- Experience hiring and leading a remote team, since this role grows into that.
What We Offer
- $120K to $140K+ base plus super, set on experience.
- Work directly with two founders who have already built and scaled an ecommerce brand to over 100,000 customers. No layers, no bureaucracy. This is the brand they’re now pouring that experience into, and your chance to help scale it into something much bigger.
- Direct access to ops leaders and mentors who’ve scaled brands doing hundreds of millions in revenue.
- Real ownership from day one. You own the whole backend, you make the calls, and you build it your way, supported, not micromanaged. This is the kind of role where in a few years you look back at an operation running at real scale and know you built it. As the brand grows, your role and package grow with it, into building and leading your own operations team.
- A high-leverage remit where every improvement is felt across the whole business.
- Work that actually means something. Every system you build and every product you help get out the door puts a tool in the hands of someone who gets to look after their own garden again, on their own terms. The better you run this, the more people we reach. Here your growth and your pay climb because you’re helping more people, not in spite of it. It’s a rare thing to build something at real scale and know it genuinely made people’s lives better.
How To Apply
Read this ad properly first, then send us three things: your resume with detailed role & duties, answers to the 3 questions below, and a short cover letter or a 2-3 minute video.
1. Tell us about a major operational problem you personally found and fixed, one nobody handed to you. What was broken, what did you actually do, what did you try first that didn’t work, and what one number did you move, by how much?
2. Describe a major system, process or SOP you built from scratch in a messy or early-stage environment. What existed before you, what existed after, and what did it change for the business?
3. This role is hands-on, broad, and sometimes messy, owning operations directly, not managing from above with a team beneath you. Why is that the environment you want right now, and what would make you walk away after six months?
2. A short cover letter, or a 2-3 minute video
Pick whichever lets you be yourself. Tell us why this role and this business specifically, and what you see in what we’re building that makes you want in.
Pay: $120,000.00 – $140,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Work from home
Work Authorisation:
- Australia (Required)
Work Location: Remote