5 free templates by type. Download as DOCX or copy-paste.
Director of operations is the hire a small business makes when the founder finally admits that running the company day to day has become a full-time job, and that it should not be theirs. It is also one of the most expensive postings the company has written so far, which makes the generic templates a real liability: they describe a corporate maintainer stepping into existing departments and dashboards, while the actual opening at a 30-person company is a builder taking operations off a founder's plate and constructing the processes that do not exist yet.
At FirstHR, we build for small businesses that hire without an HR department, and this posting is the moment many of them professionalize. The five templates below cover the real versions of the role: the full standard, the small business first-ops-hire that no job board offers, manufacturing, nonprofit, and a concise Operations Director version for fast job-board posting. Fill in the bracketed fields, settle the title question, and post. For the general principles behind any posting, the guide to writing a job description covers the fundamentals.
TL;DR
Five free, ready-to-use director of operations job description templates: Standard, Small Business / First Ops Hire, Manufacturing, Nonprofit, and a Concise Operations Director version for job boards. Download as DOCX, customize the bracketed fields, and post in minutes. Settle the level first, director versus COO versus operations manager, name the real scope, and ask applicants for one operational improvement they owned, with numbers.
What a Director of Operations Job Description Should Include
A director of operations job description needs five sections: a reporting line, a two-to-three-sentence job summary defining the operational mandate, 6 to 10 concrete responsibilities, qualifications split into required and preferred, and a salary range with application instructions. The SHRM job description tools describe a good job description as a plain-language summary of a position's tasks, duties, and responsibilities, and for a senior role the clarity has measurable stakes.
Why Role Clarity Is Worth the 20 Minutes
Gallup's workplace research finds that only 46 percent of employees clearly know what is expected of them at work, down from a high of 56 percent in March 2020 (Gallup). For a six-figure operations leader, ambiguity about scope and accountability is not an HR nicety; it is the difference between a hire who owns the operation and one who circles it.
The section small companies most often skip is the reporting line, and it is the one senior candidates read first: reporting to a founder with no COO above is a different job than reporting into an executive layer, and the posting should say which one this is.
Director of Operations Key Responsibilities
Director of operations responsibilities fall into four areas: operational strategy and process, people and cross-functional coordination, metrics and budget ownership, and risk with compliance. The setting shifts the weights, manufacturing adds production planning and safety while nonprofit adds grant and board support, but the categories hold. These are the responsibilities grouped the way the templates use them.
Operational strategy & process
Translate company goals into operating plans
Drive process improvement and remove bottlenecks
Build the systems the company scales on
People & coordination
Lead and develop the operations team
Coordinate across departments and functions
Manage vendor and supplier relationships
Metrics & budget
Define and track the operational KPIs
Own the operating budget and resource allocation
Report performance to leadership in business terms
Risk & compliance
Ensure safety and regulatory compliance
Keep operational data and records honest
Plan capacity ahead of growth, not behind it
A strong posting frames these as accountabilities with numbers attached: own the $2M operating budget, take on-time delivery from 88 to 95 percent, build the purchasing process from scratch. Activity language, oversee, support, assist, attracts candidates who describe work; outcome language attracts candidates who did it. For a structured way to scope any role before posting, the guide to defining job responsibilities walks through the process.
Director of Operations vs COO vs Operations Manager
Three titles, three altitudes, and posting the wrong one is the most common mistake in this hire. The comparison decides both the candidate pool and the price.
Factor
Operations Manager
Director of Operations
COO
Altitude
Runs a specific operation
Owns the operations function
Co-owns company strategy
Reports to
Director / GM / Owner
CEO / COO / Founder
CEO
Manages
Front-line staff
Managers and functions
Executives and functions
Core mandate
Execute within processes
Build and own the operating system
Translate strategy company-wide
Typical pricing
Below the $102,950 median
Around and above the median
Executive-level
The practical test is what the hire will own: running the existing operation well is the operations manager posting, and a true executive seat that co-pilots the company is the COO posting. The director role sits between: senior enough to decide how the operation should run, focused enough to stay accountable for it. At a small company the boundaries blur, which is an argument for naming the actual scope in the posting rather than leaning on the title to carry it.
Which Template Should You Use?
Pick the template by company shape. The responsibility core is shared across all five, but the scope, reporting line, and requirements differ enough that the matched version always reads more credibly to senior candidates. Use this guide to choose.
Standard Director of Operations
Full version, ready to post
Operational strategy, KPI ownership, budget and resource management, cross-functional coordination, and vendor management, reporting to the CEO or COO.
Small Business / First Ops Hire
Companies of 20-50 people
Founder-reporting, builder-not-maintainer framing, processes from scratch, and the unowned hats: HR basics, office, facilities, vendors.
Manufacturing / Production
Plants and production floors
Production planning, inventory, quality systems, OSHA safety, multi-shift supervision, and ERP/MRP fluency.
Nonprofit Director of Operations
Mission-driven organizations
Finance operations, HR and payroll oversight, grant budget support, board materials, and facilities, reporting to the Executive Director.
Operations Director (Concise)
Job-board version, alt title
The short, posting-ready version under the Operations Director title: 8 tight bullets, qualifications, and the salary line.
Match the Template to the Company
A founder handing off day-to-day operations for the first time: Small Business / First Ops Hire. A plant with shifts, inventory, and a quality system: Manufacturing. An Executive Director who needs the inside of the organization run: Nonprofit. A fast job-board posting under the alternate title: Concise Operations Director. An established company hiring an experienced operations leader into a defined function: Standard.
5 Free Director of Operations Job Description Templates
Download all five as a single Word document or copy individual templates. Each follows the same structure: company overview, job summary, key responsibilities, required and preferred qualifications, compensation, and how to apply, with the evidence-with-numbers application ask built in. Fill in the brackets and name the real scope before you post.
Download All 5 Job Description Templates
Standard, small business first-ops-hire, manufacturing, nonprofit, and concise Operations Director. All in one DOCX.
Template 1: Standard Director of Operations
The full version for an established company: operational strategy, KPI and budget ownership, team leadership, cross-functional coordination, and vendor management.
Standard Director of Operations Job Description
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __
Location: __ ([ ] On-site [ ] Hybrid)
Reports to: [CEO / COO]
Employment type: [ ] Full-time
Salary range: $_____ to $_____ per year
ABOUT [COMPANY NAME]
[One or two sentences about your business, its scale, and where operations
sits in how the company wins.]
JOB SUMMARY
[Company Name] is hiring a Director of Operations to own how the company
runs day to day: operational strategy, the metrics that show whether it is
working, the budget that funds it, and the cross-functional coordination
that keeps departments moving together. You will report to the [CEO / COO],
manage [teams / functions: __], and be accountable for
operational performance, not just operational activity.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Own operational strategy and translate company goals into
operating plans
•Define, track, and report the operational KPIs that matter:
__
•Manage the operations budget and resource allocation: $____________
•Lead and develop the operations team: [direct reports]
•Coordinate across departments so handoffs work and priorities align
•Drive process improvement: find the bottlenecks, fix them, measure
the result
•Manage key vendor and supplier relationships
•Report operational performance to leadership monthly, in business
terms
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•____ + years of operations leadership experience
•Demonstrated ownership of operational outcomes and budgets
•Experience managing managers or cross-functional teams
•Strong analytical skills: comfortable living in the numbers
•Clear communication up to leadership and down to the floor
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
•Experience in [your industry]
•Experience scaling operations through company growth
•[Degree / MBA] preferred but not required; results weigh more
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Salary range: $_____ to $_____ per year
Benefits: __
To apply, email __ with your resume and one
operational improvement you owned, with the numbers, by _.
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer.
Template 2: Small Business / First Ops Hire
The version no job board offers: founder-reporting, processes built from scratch, the unowned hats named explicitly, and skills-first requirements without a mandatory MBA.
Small Business / First Ops Hire Director of Operations Job Description
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS JOB DESCRIPTION - SMALL BUSINESS / FIRST OPS HIRE
Company: __ (____-person company)
Location: __
Reports to: Founder / Owner / CEO
Employment type: [ ] Full-time
Salary range: $_____ to $_____ per year
JOB SUMMARY
[Company Name] is a ____-person company hiring our first Director of
Operations. Until now, operations has been the founder plus spreadsheets
plus heroics. Your job is to take how the company runs off the founder's
plate: build the processes we currently improvise, own the day-to-day so
leadership can own the direction, and wear the hats that do not have an
owner yet, which at our size includes pieces of [HR / office / facilities /
vendor management]. This is a builder's role, not a maintainer's.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Take ownership of day-to-day operations from the founder,
deliberately and in writing
•Build the core processes from scratch: [scheduling, fulfillment,
purchasing, reporting: __]
•Own the operating budget and find the savings hiding in the
improvisation: $_____
•Coordinate the team across functions; at our size that means
Template 3: Manufacturing / Production Director of Operations
For plants and production floors: production planning, inventory, quality systems, OSHA safety, multi-shift supervision, and ERP/MRP fluency as a fillable field.
Manufacturing / Production Director of Operations Job Description
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS JOB DESCRIPTION - MANUFACTURING / PRODUCTION
Company: __
Facility: __ (____ employees, ____ shifts)
Reports to: [CEO / President / COO]
Employment type: [ ] Full-time
Salary range: $_____ to $_____ per year
JOB SUMMARY
[Company Name] is hiring a Director of Operations for our ____-person
manufacturing operation. You will own production end to end: planning and
scheduling, inventory, quality, safety, and the equipment and people that
make it all run across ____ shifts. The mandate is straightforward and
hard: hit the production plan, hold the quality standard, keep people
safe, and take cost out without taking corners off.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
PRODUCTION
•Own production planning and scheduling against demand
•Manage inventory: raw materials, WIP, finished goods, and the
working capital tied up in each
•Drive throughput and on-time delivery: targets _______________________
QUALITY AND SAFETY
•Own the quality system and hold the standard: _______________________
•Lead health and safety: training, incident response, compliance
with OSHA requirements
•Own preventive maintenance so equipment problems are scheduled,
not surprises
PEOPLE AND SYSTEMS
•Lead supervisors and leads across ____ shifts
•Run operations through [your ERP/MRP system] and keep the data
honest
•Manage supplier relationships and purchasing: $____________
•Report plant performance to leadership: output, quality, safety,
cost
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•____ + years of manufacturing operations leadership
•Production planning and inventory management experience
•Working knowledge of quality systems and OSHA compliance
•Experience leading multi-shift supervisory teams
•ERP/MRP fluency: _______________________
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
•Lean / continuous improvement experience
•Experience in [your product category / process type]
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Salary range: $_____ to $_____ per year
Benefits: __
To apply, email __ with your resume and one plant
metric you moved, with the before and after, by _.
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer.
Template 4: Nonprofit Director of Operations
For mission-driven organizations: finance operations, HR and payroll oversight, grant budget support, board materials, and facilities, reporting to the Executive Director.
Nonprofit Director of Operations Job Description
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS JOB DESCRIPTION - NONPROFIT
Organization: __
Location: __
Reports to: Executive Director
Employment type: [ ] Full-time
Salary range: $_____ to $_____ per year
ABOUT [ORGANIZATION NAME]
[One or two sentences about your mission and the operational backbone
this role will own.]
JOB SUMMARY
[Organization Name] is hiring a Director of Operations to run everything
behind the mission: finance and budget operations, HR and payroll
oversight, facilities, technology, and the administrative support our
grants and our board require. You will report to the Executive Director
and free them to focus outward, on funders, partners, and the mission,
while you make the inside of the organization run like it should.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
FINANCE AND COMPLIANCE
•Oversee day-to-day finance operations with the [bookkeeper /
accountant]: budget tracking, payables, reporting
•Support grant budgets and ensure spending aligns with grant terms
•Prepare operational and financial materials for board meetings
Director-level qualifications should be evidence-weighted: the role has no license and no mandatory credential, the O*NET profile for general and operations managers shows varied entry paths, and operational vocabulary is far easier to perform in an interview than operational results are to fake on paper.
Weak requirement
Strong requirement
10+ years of operations experience
Owned operational outcomes and a budget; tell us about one improvement, with the numbers
Strong leadership skills
Has managed managers, or built a team from the first hire up
Process improvement mindset
Found a bottleneck, fixed it, and can show the before-and-after metric
MBA required
Degree or MBA preferred; demonstrated results weigh more
Excellent communication
Reports operational performance to leadership in business terms, monthly and honestly
Keep the must-haves to demonstrated ownership, team leadership, and analytical comfort, with industry experience and degrees in preferred. And keep the language neutral and job-related, since the EEOC prohibits job advertisements that show a preference based on protected characteristics.
How to Write a Director of Operations Job Description
A strong director of operations posting takes about 20 minutes once the level question is settled, and the level question is the whole game. Here is the process the templates are built around. If this is among your first senior hires, the small business hiring guide covers the steps around the posting itself.
1
Confirm the level: director, COO, or operations manager
A director owns the operations function; a COO co-owns company strategy; an operations manager runs a specific operation. Title inflation in either direction attracts the wrong pool.
2
Choose the right template
Standard, small business first-ops-hire, manufacturing, nonprofit, or the concise Operations Director version. The company's shape decides which.
3
Name the reporting line and the real scope
State who the role reports to and what it will own concretely: the teams, the budget figure, the functions, including the unowned hats at a small company.
4
Write 6 to 10 outcome-framed responsibilities
Own the operating budget, define and report the KPIs, drive process improvement with measured results: accountabilities, not activities.
5
Publish the range and ask for evidence
Anchor to the federal median of about $102,950, publish the honest range, and ask applicants for one operational improvement they owned, with numbers.
Director of Operations Salary
Price this role from the federal benchmark, then adjust hard for company size and industry, because the spread on this title is among the widest of any senior role.
The Federal Benchmark and the Spread (BLS, May 2024)
General and operations managers, the federal classification covering operations leadership, earn a median of about $102,950 per year, with the lowest 10 percent under $47,420 and the highest 10 percent above $239,200. The top executives group overall is projected to grow 4 percent with about 331,000 openings each year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
The spread is the lesson: small businesses and nonprofits routinely fill the role below the median, manufacturing and scale push it well above, and the same title can price at double depending on the company behind it. A small business that cannot match corporate pay should publish its honest range and sell what corporate cannot: founder access, whole-company scope, the autonomy to build rather than maintain, and visible impact. Director-level candidates skip postings without a number, so the range goes in regardless.
Hiring a Director of Operations Without an HR Department
Corporate companies hire this role with compensation bands, leveling frameworks, and executive recruiters. A small business owner is usually writing the posting alone, for a role senior to any they have hired before. Here is how to write it for that reality.
Your first ops director is taking the company off the founder's plate
At 20 to 50 people, this hire is rarely about optimizing a mature operation; it is about transferring the day-to-day from a founder who has run everything by instinct to a leader who will run it by design. Say that in the posting. Name what the founder currently holds, scheduling, vendors, the budget spreadsheet, the HR basics, and state that the job is to take it over deliberately and build the processes that survive the handoff. Candidates who have done a first-ops-hire before will recognize the job instantly; corporate candidates who need an existing machine will self-select out, which is the point.
Corporate templates describe a maintainer; you need a builder
Job-board templates for this role assume departments, dashboards, and processes that already exist. At a small company none of that is built, and the generalist scope is wider: the ops director picks up pieces of HR, office, facilities, and insurance because nobody else owns them. Write the builder version: processes from scratch, wearing the unowned hats, skills-first requirements without a mandatory MBA. The wrong posting attracts polished operators who quit when they discover there is nothing to operate yet; the right one attracts people who find that exciting.
This is a six-figure decision, so screen on evidence, not vocabulary
The federal median for general and operations managers is about $102,950, and director-level candidates in many markets price above it, which makes this one of the most expensive hires a small business has made to date. Operations vocabulary is easy to perform in an interview; operational results are not. Make the application ask for one improvement the candidate owned, with the numbers, and in interviews walk through it in detail: what was broken, what they changed, what moved, and what they would do differently. The candidate who answers in specifics is the one who did the work.
From Hiring to Onboarding
The job description is step one, and for this hire the onboarding is a transfer of ownership, not an orientation. The founder hands over the operation deliberately and in writing: the budget, the vendor relationships, the process knowledge that has lived in one head, with introductions to every team lead and key vendor in the first two weeks. The arc that works is 30-60-90: the new director assesses the operation by day 30, proposes the operating plan by day 60, and owns the numbers by day 90. Senior hires fail differently than junior ones, quietly and expensively, so the structured handoff matters; the executive onboarding guide covers the senior-hire sequence in detail.
Once you have your offer ready, the offer letter generator drafts it in minutes, the employment contract template attaches the job description as the formal scope where a contract is used, and the manager onboarding template structures the first weeks for a hire who leads others. FirstHR connects the offer, e-signature paperwork, org chart placement, and the onboarding workflow in one place, so a small business can take an ops director from accepted offer to owning the operation without an HR department.
Key Takeaways
Settle the level first: a director of operations owns the operations function, a COO co-owns company strategy, and an operations manager runs a specific operation, and each title attracts a different pool at a different price.
Use the version that fits: standard, small business first-ops-hire, manufacturing, nonprofit, or the concise Operations Director title for job boards.
For a first ops hire, write the builder version: founder-reporting, processes from scratch, and the unowned hats named explicitly, which filters for operators who thrive without a playbook.
Frame responsibilities as accountabilities with numbers, own the budget, move the KPI, build the process, because outcome language attracts the candidates who did the work.
Price from the federal median of about $102,950 and respect the spread: company size can double this role's market rate, and the posting needs an honest range either way.
Onboard as a transfer of ownership: a written handoff from the founder, every key introduction in two weeks, and a 30-60-90 arc ending with the new director owning the numbers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a director of operations do?
A director of operations owns how a company runs day to day: translating company goals into operating plans, leading the operations team, managing the operating budget, defining and tracking the operational KPIs, coordinating across departments, driving process improvement, and managing key vendor relationships. The role is accountable for operational performance rather than operational activity; success is measured in throughput, cost, quality, and reliability, not in meetings held. Reporting lines vary by company size: at mid-size companies the role typically reports to the CEO or COO, while at a small business the director of operations is often the first dedicated operations leader and reports directly to the founder, with a broader generalist scope.
What should a director of operations job description include?
Five sections are mandatory. A reporting line stating who the role answers to, CEO, COO, founder, or Executive Director, and what teams it leads. A job summary of two to three sentences defining the operational mandate. Key responsibilities, 6 to 10 concrete items spanning strategy, KPIs, budget, team leadership, cross-functional coordination, and process improvement. Qualifications split into required and preferred, weighted toward demonstrated operational results rather than degrees. And a salary range with application instructions, ideally asking the candidate for one operational improvement they owned, with numbers. Add an equal opportunity statement, and for manufacturing or nonprofit settings, the setting-specific compliance and scope sections the templates on this page carry.
What is the difference between a director of operations and a COO?
Scope and seat. A COO is a C-suite executive who co-owns company strategy with the CEO and typically oversees multiple functions, of which operations is one; a director of operations is a senior leader who owns the operations function specifically and executes within the strategy set above them. In practice the line blurs at small companies, where one person may carry either title for similar work, but the posting choice matters: the COO title attracts candidates expecting an executive seat, equity conversations, and strategy ownership, while director of operations attracts execution-focused operators. If the role you are scoping co-pilots the company, post the COO version; if it runs the operation, post this one.
What is the difference between a director of operations and an operations manager?
Altitude. An operations manager runs a specific operation day to day, a location, a shift, a function, executing within established processes and managing front-line staff. A director of operations sits a level above: setting the operational strategy, owning the budget, managing the managers, and being accountable for cross-functional performance. The practical test for a small business is what the hire will own: if the job is running the existing operation well, post the operations manager role, which also prices meaningfully lower; if the job is deciding how the operation should run, building processes, and owning company-level operational results, it is the director role. Title inflation in either direction produces mismatched candidates.
Is operations director the same as director of operations?
Yes, the titles describe the same role, and search engines, job boards, and candidates treat them interchangeably; which one a company uses is convention rather than substance, with operations director slightly more common in nonprofit and UK-influenced organizations. For posting purposes it occasionally matters tactically: some job boards and candidate searches favor one phrasing, so using the title your local market searches for can affect visibility. The concise template on this page is written under the Operations Director title for exactly that use, and the content of the role, operational strategy, team leadership, budget, KPIs, and process improvement, is identical either way.
How much does a director of operations make?
The closest federal benchmark, general and operations managers, shows a median of about $102,950 per year as of May 2024, with an unusually wide spread: the lowest 10 percent under $47,420 and the highest 10 percent above $239,200, reflecting how much company size and industry move this role's price. Small businesses and nonprofits commonly fill the role in the range below the median, manufacturing and larger companies above it, and the title at scale climbs toward executive pay. Publish your honest range; director-level candidates benchmark carefully, and a small company that cannot match corporate pay should sell scope, autonomy, and founder access, which corporate cannot match either.
Does a small business need a director of operations?
The signal is founder bandwidth. When the owner of a 20-to-50-person company spends most of the week running day-to-day operations, scheduling, vendors, firefighting, the budget spreadsheet, instead of working on customers, product, and direction, the company has outgrown improvised operations and the first ops hire pays for itself. Below that point, an operations manager or a strong office manager usually covers the need at lower cost. The first-ops-hire version of the role differs from the corporate one: founder-reporting, generalist scope including unowned functions like HR basics and facilities, and a builder mandate, which is why this page includes a dedicated small business template rather than assuming the corporate shape.
What happens after I hire a director of operations?
Once a candidate accepts, the job description becomes the basis for the offer letter and an onboarding plan, and senior operational hires need a specific shape of onboarding: a deliberate, written transfer of ownership from the founder, including the budget, the vendor relationships, and the informal knowledge that has lived in one head; introductions to every team lead and key vendor in the first two weeks; and a 30-60-90 arc where the new director assesses the operation by day 30, proposes the operating plan by day 60, and owns the numbers by day 90. FirstHR handles the offer letter, e-signature paperwork, org chart placement, and the onboarding workflow in one place, so a small business can take an ops director from accepted offer to owning the operation without an HR department.
