Senior Manager / Associate Director - Product Operations

Instawork is on a mission to create meaningful economic opportunities for skilled hourly professionals in communities around the globe. Our AI-powered labor marketplace helps local businesses scale, and enables global technology companies to push the frontiers of robotics and AI. Backed by world-class investors like Benchmark, Spark Capital, Craft Ventures, Greylock, Y Combinator, and others, we’re looking for exceptional talent to reimagine the way the world works. We are moving beyond the era of buttons and screens. We believe the future of our marketplace isn't a better UI; it’s the disappearance of the UI. We are transitioning from an app-based marketplace to an agent-first ecosystem where intelligent entities negotiate, schedule, and execute on behalf of our Pros and Partners. As leader of the Product Operations team in India, you are the master architect of this transition. You won't just manage a team; you will define the technical infrastructure that allows our marketplace to run autonomously. You are a "Builder-Leader" who can debate model latency with engineers in the morning and present agentic ROI to the Board in the afternoon. Your Mandate: The Three Pillars 1. Architectural Leadership (The "Agent-First" Blueprint) ● Define the roadmap for transitioning from manual "point-and-click" workflows to intent-driven delegation. ● Oversee the design of the "Agentic Layer"—the middleware that translates user intent into marketplace actions. ● Ensure our "Ops" are not just efficient, but programmatic and self-healing. 2. Technical Execution & Hyper-Automation ● Lead the "Strike Team" that prototypes high-stakes automations. You are expected to be hands-on with Python/TypeScript, navigating Cursor or Replit to build the first 20% of a solution that proves a concept. ● Implement Reasoning-as-a-Service: Distinguish where LLMs (GPT, Claude, Gemini) are required for nuance versus where deterministic logic provides the reliability a marketplace demands. 3. Marketplace Intelligence ● Build automated systems to solve for liquidity balancing and real-time negotiation. ● Develop the telemetry needed to "debug" an agentic world. If an agent fails to close a deal, you need the data infrastructure to know why (Was it the prompt? The data? The logic?). Who You Are ● The 10-Year Veteran: You have spent a decade at the intersection of Product, Engineering, and Operations. You’ve seen the shift from SaaS to Mobile, and you’re now leading the shift to AI. ● A Technical Polymath: You likely started in Engineering and moved into Product/Ops. You can read a PR, query a vector database, and build a LangChain/AutoGPT-style pipeline without hand-holding. ● Systems Thinker: You don't solve problems with more headcount; you solve them with better code and smarter agents. ● Bangalore Ecosystem Leader: You understand how to build and mentor high-performance technical teams in India's premier tech hub. Qualifications ● 10+ years of experience in Product Operations, Technical Program Management, or Engineering Leadership (at least 4 years in a leadership role). ● Deep Automation Stack: Expert-level proficiency in Python or TypeScript. Experience with AI-native development environments and building with LLM APIs is non-negotiable. ● Marketplace Experience: Proven track record in high-frequency marketplaces (e.g., Ride-sharing, Food Delivery, Freelance platforms) where real-time matching is critical. ● Agentic Portfolio: You must be able to demonstrate (via GitHub or a portfolio) actual agents or autonomous workflows you have built—not just "GPT wrappers." This role is not for you if ● You have worked primarily in operations with no technical/product background ● You are looking for a traditional Product Management role leading a team of PMs ● Bleeding edge of AI scares you rather than excites you ● You don't want to spend >80% of your time hands-on building things Our Values Empathy, Trust & Candor We put ourselves in the shoes of our colleagues and cust