Head of Operations

Sorontar is a team of engineers and scientists working to rearm France and its allies. Backed by world-class defense investors and angels, we are building a universal weapon architecture where software, design and manufacturing come together to produce more, faster and at lower cost.

A product like this calls for a different kind of company. In most large organizations, layers of management stand between people and their work: ownership fades, knowledge travels slowly and energy goes into coordination. We chose the opposite. We keep Sorontar flat and give that energy back to the work, which is why we look for people who need no management once the direction is set.

If a lean team driven by its mission is where you do your best work, you will feel at home here.

What you'll get to do

You will make sure everyone at Sorontar can focus on building, by taking care of everything around the work: our sites, our vehicles, our IT, the daily administrative life of the team, travel and events. Over the coming months, you will build the organization and processes of an operations team that stays as compact as our mission demands.

Our approach is “no rules rules”: a process exists only where it removes friction, and we encourage automation to keep your team small while the company grows. As we move toward commercial activities, Sorontar will spread across several offices, and your role will grow from supporting an organization of a few dozen people to one of several hundred. In this role, you will recruit and lead the operations team

Your profile

Your background can be academic or self-taught. What counts is experience running operations for a company with industrial and engineering activities, at a stage when growth required structure. This experience may come from a role as office manager, administrative manager, executive assistant to senior leaders, head of operations or COO. You have managed sites, IT, travel and the administrative life of employees, and you know the French administrative framework. You are comfortable automating processes, and you work in French and English.

What will set you apart

Experience in environments where timing and intensity are part of the job will set you apart, whether in a fast-growing startup, a diplomatic organization or the events industry. These environments teach how to keep everything running when everything moves at once, and this role asks for exactly that every day. Experience in defense is also a plus.

We give priority to candidates with at least a first professional experience. Age plays no role in this assessment, and for candidates early in their career, we look closely at degrees and training.

People who thrive at Sorontar also share four traits:

• You are an owner. You treat problems as your own and carry them through to the result without waiting to be asked.
• The mission stays with you. You keep thinking about the problem, because solving it matters to you.
• You are measured by what you deliver. The result counts more to you than how busy you look.
• You decide with facts. Evidence weighs more for you than opinions, including your own.
  

What's critical to us

We are looking for brilliant, fearless and good people, and we deeply believe that people do not fit into boxes. Yet while a person is a continuum of qualities, a hiring decision is a yes or a no. To make the best decision possible, we assess every candidate on six criteria, grouped in pairs in the matrices below.

Brilliant. Talent without responsibility leaves potential unused, and responsibility without talent reaches its limits quickly. We look for people who combine the ability to solve hard problems with the drive to see them through.
Fearless. Courage without judgment leads to reckless decisions, and judgment without courage turns into commentary. We look for people who see clearly and act on what they see.
Good. Integrity without warmth makes a team hard to work in, and warmth without integrity is charm that does not last. We look for people others can rely on and enjoy working with.

Our commitment to you

The best companies are the ones where you work alongside the best colleagues. Our first commitment is to surround you with people you learn from every day, which is why we hire with great care.

• Highly competitive salary. We offer €80,000 to €100,000 gross per year, positioned according to your experience. From there, your compensation follows a clear trajectory that rewards the scope and impact of your missions.
• Equity. Your salary rewards your time, and your equity gives you a share of what your work creates.
• Full ownership of your scope. You choose how to reach the results you are responsible for, and what counts is the outcome.
• Leverage. We give you software, automation and the right tools so that your impact grows faster than your workload.
• Judgment over seniority. Your influence grows with the quality of your decisions, not with your title or your age.
• The essentials. Days off, full life insurance, lunch covered, and more.
  

Important information

• Remote policy: Our work relies on close collaboration and on our ability to adapt quickly, so we have a no-remote work policy.
• Contract: We only offer full-time permanent contracts (CDI).
• Security and access: Work at Sorontar falls into three categories. Research takes place in restricted-access zones (ZRR) and requires an access authorization. Applied technology builds on known and publicly available technologies and carries no specific access restriction. Programs deliver systems to defense customers and may require a national security clearance.
• We review applications daily and contact selected candidates within two weeks. No reply after that means this role is not the right match today. New roles open often, and we look forward to seeing you apply again.