Head of Field Operations

Job Overview

Proper Voltage is hiring its first Head of Field Operations to own everything between a product leaving our hands and a customer relying on it.

You are accountable for deployments being ready, service partners knowing what to do, customers getting decisive answers, and every field failure producing both a fast response and a permanent engineering lesson.

You will build a partner-led service model through distributors, backed by a nationwide installation and service partner wherever distributors cannot provide coverage or service, rather than an oversized internal technician organization. You will own deployment readiness, commissioning and handoff, partner training, SLAs, triage, warranty and RMA, service records, and the operating feedback loop into Engineering and Supply Chain. You will not personally solve every fault, but build the system that gives every fault an owner, a response target, a complete record, and a path to root cause.

What you'll build

• A deployment-readiness gate covering site readiness, commissioning, acceptance, customer handoff, spares, documentation, and support readiness for the first critical-power deployments.
• An operating model for distributors and the nationwide installation and service partner used where distributors cannot provide coverage or service, covering geographic coverage, responsibilities, escalation paths, training, spares, reporting, governance, and SLAs.
• One company-wide triage, warranty, and RMA process with severity levels, response targets, decision rights, customer communications, and serial-level service records.
• A recurring field-quality review with Engineering that converts failures into complete evidence, root-cause investigations, corrective actions, service bulletins, and product improvements.

Who this role is for

Someone who has personally built field operations for complex technical hardware and knows that good service starts before installation. You have managed high-severity customer incidents, held external partners accountable, and turned messy field knowledge into a repeatable operating system.

When you apply, tell us about one document or program you personally authored end to end: work instructions, a training or certification program, an SOP, a runbook. What problem did it solve, and be ready to walk us through it. We weight that answer heavily.

This role is not a fit if

This is not a SaaS customer-success role. Electrical safety, firmware, commissioning, replacement parts, site access, product configuration, and uptime are real constraints.

It will not work for someone who hides behind service partners, routes every difficult issue directly to Engineering, measures success by closing tickets instead of restoring operation, or waits for perfect tooling before establishing ownership. It will also not work for someone who needs a template, a team, or a vendor before they can produce something. For the first year you are the author, the owner, and the reviewer.

Responsibilities

• Own deployment readiness, commissioning, acceptance, customer handoff, and the operating checklist that determines whether a site and support system are ready.
• Build and operate the distributor-led installation and service network, including the nationwide installation and service partner used where distributors cannot provide coverage or service, covering service design, partner management, geographic coverage, governance, training, certification, spares, and performance management.
• Own field triage, severity classification, escalation, containment, remote or on-site resolution, and customer communication during incidents.
• Own warranty operations, RMA, failure disposition, replacement, rework, and return-to-customer coordination within the approved warranty policy and technical criteria.
• Personally author the field-facing material: installation and service work instructions, troubleshooting guides, training and certification content, and warranty and RMA procedures. We have no technical writing team, no learning function, and nobody downstream to polish a draft. You write the finished version.
• Own the warranty cost picture with Finance, including claim rate assumptions, cost per claim, recovery from partners at fault, and the reserve.
• Define PV's first customer-facing service commitments, including response time, containment, restoration, uptime, repeat failures, partner performance, and RMA cycle time.
• Own the service workflow and serial-level record requirements, including the call on where that record lives.
• Build the field-to-engineering evidence loop; Engineering owns technical diagnosis, root cause, corrective-action approval; service documentation is yours.
• Build the field organization, operating budget, tooling, and hiring sequence as deployments scale.

Required Qualifications

• Eight or more years in field service, deployment operations, or technical customer operations for complex hardware. We weight having built this once more heavily than the number of years, so tell us about the build rather than the tenure.
• Experience with power electronics, energy storage, industrial automation, robotics, or similarly technical systems.
• Demonstrated success building a partner-led service model across distributors, integrators, or third-party field providers.
• Direct experience managing critical incidents, commissioning failures, warranty decisions, and RMAs.
• Enough technical fluency to work from diagnostic logs, electrical and system documentation, firmware information, and failure evidence without becoming a substitute for Engineering.
• Proven ability to establish SLAs, escalation paths, service records, and operating metrics from scratch, with clear recommendations and decisive follow-through.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with UPS systems, data-center infrastructure, batteries, or critical-power products.
• Experience building technician training, certification, and train-the-trainer programs.
• Experience defining service workflows for customer portals, CRM, or field-service platforms.
• Background in a high-growth hardware company approaching its first scaled deployments.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary: $210k to $250k depending on experience.
• Equity: Based on experience.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Flexible PTO with a generous holiday policy.
• Carlsbad-based work schedule. Travel is front-loaded while you learn the product and see installations first hand, then settles as our partners carry the on site work.

Ready to work on power systems that matter? Let's talk.