Operations and Automation Specialist
About Buffer
We create social media and brand-building software for small businesses, creators, and individuals. Our mission is to provide essential tools to help small businesses get off the ground and grow. Through exceptional customer service and uplifting content, we help our customers believe they can succeed and do good along the way.
Buffer is a fully distributed team, and we’ve always aimed to do things a little differently at Buffer. Since the early days, we’ve focused on building one of the most unique and fulfilling workplaces by rethinking a lot of traditional practices. We also default to transparency, so you can read all about our metrics, and our successes and failures along the way on our Transparency Dashboard.
We're united by Buffer's values, and we hire and work from all over the world. We strive to create a diverse and inclusive work environment, and we are building a culture where underrepresented groups are welcome and can flourish. Please note that we do travel to work together in person once or twice per year, and those events are highly encouraged to build deeper connections among our small team.
As you get to know Buffer and consider joining the journey, feel free to read more from Kirsti and Sabreen as they share their first experiences with Buffer, as well as from Hailley, who captured why she still calls Buffer home after 8+ years.
About the role
Buffer is a fully distributed company, spread out across many continents and timezones. We have big ambitions for Buffer, which are captured in a cascading set of separate but overlapping strategic themes, company initiatives, projects, and tasks. We believe in radical transparency, so we prioritize documentation and context both internally and externally. Like most growing SaaS companies, we operate across a range of tools and systems, with varying levels of access and ownership.
As a 15-year-old company that continues to evolve, we’re actively refining how we work. And lately, we have a focus on integrating AI to operate more effectively.
So, we are looking for a systems-minded operator and builder to work cross-functionally across Buffer and help improve how communication flows, how decisions are surfaced, owned, and documented, how context is shared, how we approach tooling and IT, and how we adapt as AI transforms how we work.
As we grow, and as AI reshapes the nature of work, we see an opportunity to:
Remove friction from daily work
Use automation and AI thoughtfully
Build operating systems that help scale our level of transparency, trust, and care.
Reporting into the People team, this role will own and strengthen our company operating system as a remote, global team, and help Buffer shape a calmer, clearer way of working by reducing complexity as we build for and serve our customers.
What you'll own
Team-wide communication flow and documentation. Improve how our tools and rituals work together, including project management in Linear, internal communication in Slack, and company-wide touchpoints like All Hands and our weekly newsletter, to create clearer alignment and shared context.
Information Architecture. Own and improve our Notion space, balancing a combination of swiftly changing internal reference material, historical documentation, and a transparent company handbook.
Tooling. Take a bird's eye view of our tools to streamline systems across Finance (renewals and budgeting), and IT and Security (provisioning and deprovisioning, and permissions and access). Manage the gradual but constant evolution of our tools stack by helping us optimize the tools we're using, explore and suggest new solutions, and offboard as needed.
People Data. Develop thoughtful tracking and reporting to increase visibility into People topics such as benefits usage, time off, performance and promotions, diversity, and tenure, as well as operational health indicators like strategic alignment, decision velocity, team sustainability, and overall effectiveness.
Automation and AI adoptions. Support exploration and adoption of AI tools and automation to improve communication, information access, and pace of decision-making and execution.
Helpful skills and experience
A love of tinkering. You are an early adopter of AI and automation tools and use them as a core part of how you work. You have hands-on examples of building and shipping practical solutions using platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Zapier, Make, n8n, Retool, or similar tools. Whether automating workflows, connecting systems, or prototyping internal tools, you turn ideas into working solutions. You may not come from a traditional technical background, but you are technically confident, highly resourceful, and quick to teach yourself new systems. You’re excited to model and accelerate thoughtful AI adoption across the company.
Experience designing and maintaining company-wide systems in a remote, global environment. You have a strong systems thinking mindset and excellent operational judgement.
Experience taking a strategic view of a company’s tool stack, including evaluating new solutions, driving adoption, and retiring redundant tools.
Strong judgment on when to introduce structure and when to preserve autonomy. You know that more process is not always the answer.
Strong data literacy. You are comfortable defining meaningful metrics, building dashboards, and turning data into clear narratives that guide decisions.
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills. You thrive in an async environment and can create documentation that is concise, structured, accessible, and easy to navigate.
Deep care for people and culture. You are motivated by creating environments where teammates feel clarity, trust, and psychological safety while doing their best work.
Interview Process
This is our best guess at the interview process for this role, but there's a chance that stages may switch around to accommodate schedules.
Application. When submitting your application and resume, tell us why you're a great fit for Buffer and for the role; we'd love to get to know you as a professional and as a human. Please take care with this stage; this is your chance to make a strong first impression. (It usually takes us a few weeks to review all applications, so you'll hear back from us a few weeks after submitting.)
Asynchronous exercise. We'll ask for a detailed look into a process, automation, or workflow you've created. This is a written document, and a ~10-minute video telling us all about the project. If you love to nerd out on your systems, you're among friends!
Interview with Buffer's People Team. Meet Carolyn Kopprasch, our Chief of Staff, and Jenna Meindertsma, our Senior People Operations Specialist, with whom you'd work closely. This stage is about digging into some of the deeper aspects of the role, the work you'd be doing, and just an opportunity to get to know each other.
Meet our VP of Finance & Operations and the CEO. Next, we'd love for you to meet Jenny Terry, our VP of Finance and Ops, and Joel Gascoigne, our CEO. This is a chance for you to gain a deeper understanding of Buffer's strategy, values, and work processes.
Collaboration Day. Our final stage of every hiring process is an opportunity to do real (paid) work together. We'll ask you to set aside a full day to meet with more Bufferoos and work on real projects together in Slack and over Zoom. We pull the daily rate from the salary, and pay you directly for your time.
Offer! We'll discuss any remaining details and make an offer to join the team. 🫶
At Buffer, we value diversity of experience, and we understand that comes in many forms. We’re dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team. So, if your experience is close to what we’re looking for, please consider applying.
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