Vice President of Operations

6 days ago

Berkeley, California, United States Terranova Full time $120,000 - $200,000 per year

Company Description

Backed by leading climate and American dynamism investors, Terranova builds intelligent robotic systems to terraform the Earth itself - lifting land, restoring wetlands, and protecting critical infrastructure from floods and sea-level rise.

Our mission is to preserve the built environment, create new habitats, and usher in an era of abundance. Our work supports climate resilience, disaster recovery, and defense across the United States and beyond.

We're assembling a world-class team that wants to work on something real, physical, and civilization-scale. If you want your work to reshape the world (literally), this is the place to do it.

Overview

We are seeking a
VP of Operations
to be the connective tissue between our engineering, product, sales, and business teams. Someone who ensures the entire company executes with precision, speed, and accountability. You will own the operational rhythm of Terranova, turning complex, cross-disciplinary initiatives into coordinated execution.

This role requires a deeply technical operator who thrives in chaos, understands both robotic hardware and AI-driven software development lifecycles, and can communicate fluently across mechanical, electrical, and data teams as well as external partners and customers. You'll be the one keeping every train on the tracks, aligning priorities, managing dependencies, and making sure the company delivers to customers on time, on budget, and at our own internal standard of excellence.

Key Responsibilities

  • Program Leadership:
  • Own end-to-end delivery of major internal and customer-facing programs across hardware, robotics, software, and AI.
  • Build and maintain program roadmaps, deliverable timelines, and accountability frameworks.
  • Define system production approach that balances cost, speed and risk from initial commercial launch to serial production.
  • Translate the CEO's and CTO's vision into detailed, measurable execution plans.
  • Cross-Functional Coordination:
  • Bridge communication between Sales/BD, Engineering, Production, and Field Ops to align customer commitments with internal capability.
  • Run weekly cross-team syncs, sprint planning, and milestone reviews; identify blockers early and drive them to resolution.
  • Ensure bidirectional feedback between product and customers flows seamlessly into technical prioritization.
  • Oversee manufacturing and supplier strategy.
  • Process & Systems:
  • Implement lightweight but thorough operational systems (task tracking, release gates, change control) that support speed without bureaucracy.
  • Develop dashboards and metrics for execution health, tracking engineering velocity, manufacturing throughput, deployment readiness, and customer delivery status.
  • Customer & Partner Delivery:
  • Partner with BD to scope, schedule, and operationalize field deployments.
  • Own delivery schedules for customer projects; ensure hardware, software, and field operations converge on time.
  • Represent Terranova's operational excellence to customers, partners, and contractors.
  • Team Development:
  • Coach leads across engineering, production and operations on effective planning and prioritization.
  • Establish repeatable cadences for sprint planning, stand-ups, retros, and cross-department communication.

Key Qualifications

  • 10+ years of experience in
    technical program management, systems engineering, or operations leadership

at a robotics, aerospace, AI, or heavy equipment company.
- Deep familiarity with complex
hardware/software co-development,

ideally with field-deployable robotic or autonomous systems.
- Proven ability to translate between disciplines (mechanical, electrical, software, production, and business).
- Hands-on experience managing
complex technical programs

with multiple parallel workstreams, tight timelines, and evolving customer requirements.
- Strong understanding of agile principles, Gantt-based planning, and system-of-systems architecture.
- Experience building operational systems from scratch in high-growth or early-stage environments.

Additional Skills

  • Exceptional communication skills and emotional intelligence - able to keep engineers, executives, and customers aligned under pressure.
  • Network of potential suppliers for capital equipment and/or robotics.
  • Experience with compliance, HAZOP, and FMEA tools for machine safety.
  • Experience with AI/ML systems, embedded robotics, or geospatial modeling is desirable.

Ideal Candidate

You're a systems thinker with startup reflexes - a technical operator who loves complexity but demands clarity. You can look at a Terranova robot in the field, understand its hardware/software interplay, and immediately map the operational critical path from prototype to customer delivery. You have the discipline of an aerospace PM, the empathy of a coach, and the urgency of a founder.

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