Operations Manager Jobs in the USA (2025 Guide) -

Operations manager jobs in the USA The operations manager jobs sit at the nerve center of how a business actually runs. They translate strategy into throughput, cost, quality, and customer outcomes. Whether the setting is a factory floor, a 3PL warehouse, a hospital, a national restaurant group, or a SaaS scale‑up, the job is the same in spirit: set up systems that deliver reliably, improve them continuously, and marshal people and vendors to hit targets without burning the team out.

This guide explains what operations managers really do, where the jobs are, what they pay, how to qualify, and how to position yourself for interviews and promotions. You’ll find metric‑driven résumé bullets, a 30‑60‑90 plan template, and negotiation angles that actually move offers.

What an Operations Manager Actually Does

Scope and purpose. Operations managers own day‑to‑day execution: staffing, scheduling, vendor coordination, capacity planning, risk control, and performance measurement. They lead the operating rhythm—stand‑ups, dashboards, ops reviews—and run playbooks for incidents, peak seasons, and change rollouts.

Common titles: Operations Manager, General & Operations Manager, Plant/Factory Operations Manager, Fulfillment/Logistics Operations Manager, Business Operations Manager, Service Operations Manager, Practice/Clinic Operations Manager, Revenue/Business Ops Manager (in tech/services).

Where it sits vs. other roles:

Project/Program Management focuses on finite initiatives; Operations is the ongoing system that absorbs those changes and keeps outcomes stable.
Product Management owns what gets built; Operations owns how it’s consistently delivered.
Supply Chain plans inbound/outbound material movement; Operations is the local execution point (people, process, equipment) that turns plan into output.

Deliverables you’ll be judged on:

Reliability (SLA attainment, on‑time in‑full, schedule adherence)
Efficiency (unit cost, labor productivity, cost per order/patient/unit, waste/scrap, OEE)
Quality (defect rate, returns, rework, compliance findings)
Experience (NPS/CSAT, waiting time, first‑contact resolution)
Financials (budget vs. actual, contribution margins)

Salary Snapshot for Operations Manager Jobs(2025)

Comp varies widely by industry, scope, and location, but a practical range for U.S. operations managers looks like this:

Base pay (national bands):

Early Ops Manager / Single‑site: ~$75,000–$105,000
Experienced / Multi‑team or larger site: ~$100,000–$145,000
Senior Ops Manager / Multi‑site or complex P&L: ~$130,000–$180,000+

Bonuses & incentives: 5–20% target are common in mid‑size and enterprise environments; plant/fulfillment roles often tie bonuses to safety, quality, cost, and delivery metrics.

Equity: More common in tech/services and growth companies (RSUs or options), typically modest at manager level but meaningful upside at director+.

Where pay skews higher: high‑cost metros (SF Bay Area, NYC, Boston, Seattle, DC), regulated industries (biotech/medical devices, utilities), and 24/7 operations with heavy compliance (healthcare, aerospace, food manufacturing). Logistics hotbeds (Dallas–Fort Worth, Atlanta, Memphis, Inland Empire, Louisville) offer strong volumes and fast promotion velocity.

What actually moves your pay:

Scope: headcount, budget, and P&L accountability.
Complexity: number of lines/sites, automation level, regulatory load, seasonality.
Results: sustained KPI improvements (unit cost, yield, on‑time) and successful scale‑ups.
Certifications: Lean/Six Sigma, ASCM CPIM/CSCP, PMP—useful signals when paired with results.

Job Outlook & Where the Jobs Cluster

Operations roles exist everywhere, but hiring clusters around a few engines:

Manufacturing (discrete and process): auto, aerospace, electronics, packaging, food & bev, pharma/biotech, medical devices. Expect layered roles: shift supervisor → area manager → plant ops manager.
Logistics & E‑commerce: fulfillment centers, 3PLs, parcel hubs, last‑mile depots. High volume, clear KPIs (CPH—cost per handled unit, OTIF), and fast internal ladders.
Healthcare & Life Sciences: hospital/clinic operations, perioperative & sterile processing, lab ops, med‑device facilities. Compliance and safety drive structure; strong cross‑functional complexity.
Services & SaaS: business operations, revenue operations, customer operations, trust & safety operations. Data fluency matters; hybrid/remote is more common.
Hospitality & Multi‑site Retail: district operations, franchise operations, store/restaurant multi‑unit managers. Emphasis on labor models, mystery‑shop scores, and unit economics.

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Geographically, look for large distribution corridors (I‑35, I‑75, I‑95), port cities (LA/Long Beach, Savannah, Houston), manufacturing belts (Midwest, Southeast), life‑sciences hubs (Boston, SF Bay Area, RTP, Minneapolis), and healthcare‑dense metros (NYC, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia).

Qualifications & Skills for Operations Manager Jobs (What Hiring Managers Screen For)

Education: Bachelor’s is typical. An MBA helps for director/VP tracks or finance‑heavy P&L roles, but it’s not mandatory if your results are strong.

Core skills:

Process mapping & standard work: Value stream maps; SOPs; work instructions; visual management.
KPI design & cadence: Defining leading/lagging indicators; setting thresholds; daily/weekly review rhythms.
Forecasting & capacity planning: Translating demand into labor, lines, rooms, or compute capacity; buffers and takt time.
Budgeting & unit economics: Variance analysis; cost per unit; margin drivers.
People leadership: hiring, coaching, performance management, shift design, safety culture.
Change management: piloting, training plans, adoption metrics, stakeholder comms.

Tools:

Spreadsheets & BI: Excel/Sheets power user; dashboards (Power BI/Tableau/Looker); SQL basics increasingly valuable.
Operations systems: ERP (SAP/Oracle/Microsoft), WMS/TMS, MRP, MES, CMMS, QMS; in services, CRM (Salesforce), ticketing (Zendesk/Jira), and workflow tools.
Improvement toolkits: Lean (5S, Kaizen, SMED), Six Sigma (DMAIC), Theory of Constraints, error‑proofing (poka‑yoke).

Certifications (nice‑to‑have)

Lean Six Sigma (Green/Black Belt) for process improvement credibility.
ASCM CPIM/CSCP/CLTD for supply chain and planning depth.
PMP for project leadership.
OSHA 30 (industrial contexts), ITIL (service ops), CQA/CQM (quality leadership) where relevant.

Day‑to‑Day: What “Great” Looks Like in Operations Manager Jobs

Morning rhythm

15‑minute stand‑up: yesterday’s KPIs, today’s constraints, safety tip, top risks, owner assignments.
Gemba walk (shop floor/warehouse/clinic floor) or queue review in services; check visual boards and andon triggers.
Confirm labor plan vs. forecast; rebalance if sick calls or surges hit.

Midday execution

Root‑cause any misses: pareto charts, 5‑whys, fishbone.
Vendor/carrier escalation; maintenance and quality syncs.
Coaching moments on standard work; confirming adherence to SOPs.

Afternoon close

Update dashboard; log exceptions; write the next day’s plan.
Hold a short kaizen or training huddle twice a week; recognize wins publicly.

Weekly ops review

Safety (TRIR, near misses) → Quality (defects, returns, complaints) → Delivery (OTIF/SLA) → Cost (labor/productivity, scrap) → People (attendance, training completion).
Highlight 1–3 improvement experiments with hard results.

Incident playbook

Severity scale; comms tree; decision rights; rollback plan; post‑incident review.
One‑page A3 for each incident: problem, impact, root cause, countermeasures, owners, due dates.

Break‑In Paths (From Analyst/Specialist to Ops Manager)

Feeder roles:

Operations/Business Analyst → builds dashboards, forecasts capacity, owns reporting; graduates to managing a team and its outcomes.
Production/Shift Supervisor or Warehouse Lead → proves people leadership on the floor; steps into site‑wide planning and cross‑team orchestration.
Program/Project Manager → shifts from milestone delivery to steady‑state ownership of KPIs and P&L levers.
Quality, Supply Planning, or Customer Support Lead → lateral into ops by owning cross‑functional initiatives tied to reliability and unit cost.

Portfolio/impact packet:

Before/after KPI slides (cost per unit, on‑time %, backlog, yield).
2–3 SOPs or playbooks you wrote (privacy‑scrubbed).
Dashboard screenshots with a paragraph on how the metrics drove decisions.
Savings model (assumptions, sensitivity, validation).
A one‑page A3 for an incident you resolved.

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Education sprint:

Tighten Excel/Sheets (INDEX‑MATCH/XLOOKUP, Power Query, pivoting).
Learn SQL SELECT/JOIN/WHERE and how to pull KPI data yourself.
Complete a Lean Foundations or Green Belt course; run a small kaizen and document results.

Résumé Bullets & Interview Prep for Operations Manager Jobs(Metric‑Driven)

Swap vague verbs for hard outcomes. Here are plug‑and‑play examples you can adapt.

Manufacturing/Plant Ops

“Increased OEE from 62% → 74% in 9 months by implementing SMED on 3 lines; cut changeover time 31% and reduced scrap 18%.”
“Stabilized 24/7 schedule; reduced overtime 22% while maintaining >98.5% on‑time shipments.”
“Implemented layered process audits; customer complaints down 37% and first‑pass yield up 6 pts.”

Logistics/Fulfillment

“Redesigned pick paths and slotting; CPH improved 19%, OTIF rose to 97.8%, and damages fell 28%.”
“Launched cross‑dock for peak; absorbed +42% volume with no additional headcount.”

Healthcare/Clinic Ops

“Introduced advanced access model; third‑next‑available fell from 21 to 7 days; no‑show rate −15%.”
“Standardized sterile processing handoffs; turnover time −9 minutes/room, surgical start‑on‑time +11 pts.”

SaaS/Service Ops

“Built backlog triage and swarming; first‑response −45%, CSAT +0.6, backlog age −38%.”
“Automated monthly close tasks; time to close −2 days and audit adjustments to zero.”

Behavioral stories (prep with STAR+)

Scaling: “We doubled volume in Q4 with quality intact…”
Vendor turnaround: “We replaced a carrier while maintaining OTIF > 98%…”
Team reset: “Reduced attrition from 28% → 15% by fixing shifts and coaching leads…”
Incident: “Line contamination shut us down; within 36 hours we…”

Case prompts you may face

“Outbound SLA slipped to 90%. What’s your triage in the first week?”
“Unit cost rose 12% YoY. What’s your diagnostic and plan?”
“How would you staff a site going from 2 to 3 shifts?”

Structure answers around diagnose → plan → execute → measure → adjust, with specific metrics.

How to Find & Filter Roles for Operations Manager Jobs

Title variations (search broadly): “Operations Manager,” “Business Operations Manager,” “General & Operations Manager,” “Plant Operations Manager,” “Fulfillment/Logistics Operations Manager,” “Center/Clinic Operations Manager,” “Regional Operations.”

Boolean strings (examples):

operations manager (manufacturing OR plant OR production) (OEE OR “continuous improvement” OR kaizen)
(“fulfillment” OR warehouse OR logistics) (“operations manager” OR “site manager”) (OTIF OR “cost per”)
(“business operations” OR “revenue operations”) manager (SLA OR backlog OR “process improvement”)

Signals of real scope in job ads:

Owns KPIs and budget (not just “support”).
Leads multiple teams or cross‑functional rituals (ops reviews).
Mentions headcount planning, vendor contracts, or P&L responsibility.
Lists specific systems (ERP/WMS/MES/CRM) and metrics (OEE, OTIF, NPS, CPH).

Where to look: company career pages, supply‑chain/logistics job boards, hospital networks, and local manufacturing associations. Warm intros from vendors, carriers, or former supervisors are gold.

Compensation Deep‑Dive & Negotiation for Operations Manager Jobs

Know your package structure:

Base + bonus (Ops KPIs) + equity (in tech/services) + benefits + relocation + shift premiums (24/7 sites).
In plant/fulfillment roles, night/weekend premiums can add $3–$7/hr to total comp; in tech/services, equity and spot bonuses matter more.

Negotiation levers:

Title calibration: “Operations Manager” vs. “Senior Operations Manager.”
Scope clarity: define headcount, sites, budget, and which KPIs affect bonus.
MBOs: agree on 2–4 measurable goals for the first bonus period (e.g., OTIF +2 pts, unit cost −5%, safety TRIR −15%).
Signing + relocation: ask to offset forfeited bonus/equity and moving costs.
Flexibility: hybrid days for planning/reporting in services; 4x10s in 24/7 operations.

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The 30‑60‑90 plan (bring to the final round):

30 days: absorb the system—SOPs, org chart, vendor list, KPI baseline, risks, open CAPAs; run listening tour.
60 days: deliver quick wins—labor model tune, slotting/line balance, backlog triage, a daily stand‑up ritual; publish a visible KPI board.
90 days: lock the roadmap—3–5 improvements with owners, targets, and ROI; propose bonus MBOs tied to these.

Career Ladders & Adjacent Tracks for Operations Manager Jobs

Ladder: Ops Manager → Senior Ops Manager → Director of Operations → Senior Director/Head of Ops → VP/COO.

Adjacent tracks:

Supply Chain & Planning: S&OP, demand/supply planning, procurement.
Program/PMO: lead cross‑company initiatives.
Quality/Regulatory: if you excel at audits and CAPA.
RevOps/FinOps (services/SaaS): own revenue processes or cost allocation at scale.

Keep learning: finance for non‑finance leaders; SQL for operators; statistics for process control; negotiation; org design; safety leadership if industrial.

FAQs

Do I need PMP or Lean Six Sigma to get hired?
Not strictly. Results beat certificates. That said, a Green Belt or PMP can help you clear HR screens and signal improvement discipline.

How technical do I need to be?
Technical enough to design KPIs, read dashboards, and troubleshoot with engineers or analysts. Basic SQL is increasingly expected in services and tech; MES/WMS familiarity matters in plants and warehouses.

Which industries pay best?
Regulated and high‑complexity environments—biopharma, medical devices, aerospace/defense, utilities, and large tech/services—tend to pay more, followed by logistics powerhouses and advanced manufacturing.

Are Ops roles remote?
Plant/warehouse/hospital operations are on‑site. Business operations in tech/services are frequently hybrid; fully remote is rare but possible for specific scopes.

Typical team sizes and budgets?
Single‑site managers may lead 15–80 people with a controllable budget in the low millions; multi‑site or regional roles scale headcount into the hundreds and budgets into eight figures.

Resources on Operations Manager Jobs

Professional bodies & certs: ASCM (CPIM/CSCP/CLTD), Project Management Institute (PMP), Lean/Six Sigma training providers.
Tooling: Vendor academies for ERP/WMS (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft), Power BI/Tableau learning paths, SQL basics (free courses).
Playbooks & templates: A3 problem‑solving, RACI matrix, SOP checklist, daily stand‑up agenda, KPI tree.

Appendix: Templates

A) KPI Tree (from Inputs → Process → Outputs → Outcomes → Financials)

Inputs: labor hours, materials, machine uptime, vendor OTIF
Process: cycle time, changeover time, queue length, WIP
Outputs: units shipped, orders completed, cases handled, tickets resolved
Outcomes: on‑time %, first‑pass yield, returns/defects, patient wait time, CSAT/NPS
Financials: unit cost, margin, overtime %, repair spend

B) One‑Page A3 (Incident)

Problem statement; current condition & impact; root cause; countermeasures; owners & due dates; follow‑up checks.

C) 30‑60‑90 Plan (Fill‑In)

30: Stakeholders to meet; SOPs to review; KPI baseline; 3 risks.
60: Two quick wins with projected KPI lift; training plan; vendor alignment.
90: Three initiatives with forecast savings/revenue impact; draft MBOs; hiring plan if needed.

Final Take

Operations manager jobs are craft. If you can turn strategy into a daily drumbeat of reliable performance—and prove it with numbers—you will always be in demand. Build your toolkit (process, data, people), collect before/after metrics, and choose environments where complexity and volume sharpen your skills. From there, every promotion is a matter of scope and repeatable results.