Who is an operations manager and what is his role in the company?

When we look at a project, we rarely think about the fact that all the banners, bonuses, tournaments, and lotteries were set up and launched by someone. And these «someones» are operational managers.

You can come up with a brilliant feature, but if there's no one to correctly assemble and roll it out, it will remain just an idea in the task tracker.

Who is an operational manager

In our company, the operational manager is responsible for everything displayed on the site: from the image on the banner to the correct setup of the bonus for 95th place in the weekly tournament.

In different companies, this role is divided into content, bonus, and game managers. With us, it's one person who handles all the operations.

Career path

Newcomer
0 years of experience
Salary: ~500$

A lot of manual work, a lot of new information, simple tasks under the supervision of seniors. Nothing overly complex, but sometimes boring. The faster the employee learns and the fewer mistakes they make, the sooner they will be allowed relatively free rein. Ideal for a first job after university, as specialized knowledge is not particularly required.

Middle
0.5–2 years
Salary: 1000–1500$

Less control, more responsibility. Simple tasks are completed without rechecking, participation in meetings begins, and an understanding of how hypotheses and features are formed. The operations manager is still just an executor, but they are already much more involved in the question of «what idea is behind a particular feature.».

Senior
3–4 years
Salary: from 2000$

This is the project's encyclopedia. The person knows what, how, and why things work, remembers what has already been launched and what failed. Often can analyze activity as well as a product manager. Essentially, this is an operations specialist with a product mindset, the ability to make independent conclusions, and provide truly valuable recommendations to other teams.

Where you can grow

Over several years of work, a person goes through dozens of launches, failures, and successful cases. Therefore, transitioning to product, project, promo, or even operations director is quite a logical story.

An operations manager is the intersection point of strategy and reality. Having gained a wealth of invaluable experience, the person calmly transitions to a new (on paper) role, but is perfectly prepared for this role and sometimes fulfills it better than an outsider with an impressive resume.

Pros

• Rapid growth with a good learning pace.
• Huge practical experience due to working with all teams.

Minuses

• Monotony at the start.
• Stress: any mistake means money, dissatisfied players, and angry colleagues.
• Burnout due to constant urgency (task on Friday evening, launch on Monday morning).