The Ops team's primary goal is to make PostHog an incredible place to work by removing distractions from other small teams. We keep PostHog running smoothly without implementing lots of unnecessary processes.
We are also responsible for growing the team by adding in world class talent to new and existing small teams. We want to do this while retaining our world-class team by making PostHog the most transparent company in the world, and the best place for people to work in general.
Ops provide all the tools, literally and metaphorically, needed for our team to come in and do their best work. Practically, this looks like:
- A small ops team covering a wide range of disciplines that can react to any incoming items to allow the rest of the business to focus on what they do best - building products.
- Nailing the basics of working at a start-up for our team members. Making sure things like payroll, onboarding, offboarding etc. all work smoothly and are on autopilot as much as possible.
- Thinking slightly further ahead than the “here and now" to predict when we may need to make changes like hiring new team members, changing our spending patterns to manage cash, managing our comp structure, implementing a new tool etc.
- Setting a very high bar for bringing people on board. We are always looking for the best people in their field, or people on their way to becoming exceptional at their jobs. This is so important to us, it's enshrined in our company values.
- Manage compliance projects like SOC 2 or HIPAA to help us land larger customers. These projects require input from some small team members, but Ops will make sure everybody knows who and what is needed.
- Partnering with the Exec team to work on people initiatives to build a diverse and inclusive culture at PostHog. We want to put a strong sense of belonging at the heart of everything we do.
- Running any disciplinary or grievance process that may occasionally arise.
These are some things that Ops is not responsible for which you might see at other companies
- Resolving performance issues and creating things like performance management plans. This is the Exec team's responsibility, working with the relevant managers.
- Booking travel or accommodation for when you travel. You have the ability to do this yourself and we trust you will spend money carefully. The exception to this is our company offsite where we book accommodation.
- Setting compensation - Exec team do this.
- Centralized customer support - this sits with the Customer Success team generally, with individual small teams having a support hero on rotation.
- Company wide goal setting - the Exec team ensure this happens, and small teams run their own planning
- Training - this is self serve
Ops team values
- Take ownership
- Be supremely reliable
- Act with care & compassion
Take ownership
When something falls on the Ops team, we make it very clear we are the owners of that specific thing. We communicate clearly with other teams when we require their input and we make it as easy as possible for them to help us achieve the desired outcome. We are quick to triage things that don’t have a clear owner and we get them into great shape before we expect others to have to interact with it. This could be anything from a compliance matter to how our merch process works. We say 'here's how this could get done' rather than 'that's not my job'.
Be supremely reliable
If we say will take care of something, we take care of it - no exceptions. We are often trusted with big and small things, and we take all of them seriously. This also means we will keep you in the loop if something can't happen as we originally intended. We are trusted with a lot of sensitive information, from our team members' personal details to specific company info that we need to protect. When people trust the Ops team with something, they need to know it’s getting done properly.
Act with care & compassion
The Ops team has got your back. We treat everybody with respect - caring deeply about the success of the business means caring deeply about the success of every team member, irrespective of things like seniority. We want to be sure we will be proud of how we handled any situation. This doesn’t just apply to our team members but to anybody interviewing, the customers we deal with, and anybody else we interact with externally such as suppliers.