📍 Remote · Based in the Bay Area, CA · Travel Required

What we're looking for

Ordo is a K-12 school food program that connects kitchens, schools, and families to serve fresh, real food made with whole ingredients to kids nationwide. We're growing fast, signing larger contracts, and need someone who can own the relationships that make it all work on the ground.

This is not a traditional ops role. You'll sit between our kitchen partners and the schools they serve — mediating, negotiating, and building trust on both sides. The kitchens are chefs running real businesses. The schools are institutions with regulations, politics, and strong opinions. Your job is to control the narrative in that relationship: know when to push, when to protect, when to translate, and when to hold the line. You're not passing messages, but shaping outcomes.

You're sharp, detail-oriented, and comfortable navigating gray areas. You stay calm when people are upset and act strategically when things get complicated. You remember what people told you three weeks ago and notice when the story changes.

What you'll do

• Own kitchen and school relationships: onboarding new partners, building trust, and managing the ongoing dynamic between them. You are the single point of accountability.
• Be on-site regularly: onboard kitchens in person, walk school lunch lines, audit food quality and compliance, and catch the things that only show up when you're physically there.
• Mediate and negotiate constantly: schools want more, kitchens are stretched thin, and both sides are convinced the other is the problem. You find the middle ground that keeps the service running and the relationships intact.
• Navigate compliance and regulation: you’ll deal with a ton of USDA/NSLP requirements, CACFP guidelines, and meal pattern compliance. You don't need to be an expert on day one, but you need to be comfortable learning a rule system and figuring out how to work within it.
• Build the playbook: document what works, surface what doesn't, and collaborate with the ops and product teams to turn field knowledge into repeatable processes.
• Support launches: new school partnerships require coordinating kitchen prep, recipe walkthroughs, delivery logistics, and school-side setup. The first week sets the tone for the entire year.

Who you are

• A natural mediator and negotiator. You instinctively read rooms, manage competing interests, and get people to agree to things without making them feel steamrolled.
• Relentlessly detail-oriented with a strong memory. You remember the specifics of past conversations and notice when something doesn't add up. People can't easily get things past you.
• Assertive but adaptable. You can hold firm when it matters and flex your style depending on who you're talking to (e.g. a no-nonsense chef from New York requires a different approach than a cautious school administrator in NoCal).
• Comfortable with ambiguity and complexity. Our service model involves temperature logistics, packaging variations, multiple compliance frameworks, and a wide range of partner personalities. You don't need everything spelled out to make good decisions.
• Energized by your team, not just the work. Field work with schools and kitchens can be draining. You draw motivation from your internal team and the mission, not just from being on-site.
• Willing to travel. This role involves regular regional travel – driving between school sites and kitchens, and occasional flights for launches or audits in adjacent markets.