Operations Associate

Operations Associate

Karta Innovations · Hyderabad · Full-time, on-site

About us

Karta Innovations builds the sovereign autonomy stack for unmanned systems — GPS-denied navigation, onboard perception, and swarm coordination for Indian defence platforms. Hardware is commoditising; the autonomy layer is where the defensible capability sits, and it needs to be built in India, by Indians, for Indian operational conditions.

We are a small, technical team. Our engineers fly the aircraft they write code for.

The role

This is the role that keeps the company running while the engineers build. You will own the operational spine of the business — hiring, procurement, tenders, finance coordination, vendor management, and direct support to the founders.

It is deliberately broad. In a given week you might be closing a candidate, chasing an import clearance on a sensor shipment, assembling an EMD submission for a defence tender, and reconciling a month of expenses. If that variety sounds like chaos, this is not the role. If it sounds like leverage, read on.

You will not be handed processes. You will build them.

What you will own

Hiring

• Run the recruitment pipeline end to end — sourcing, screening, scheduling, coordination with interviewers, offer rollout
• Build and maintain the candidate pipeline for engineering and non-engineering roles
• Manage campus and academic relationships for interns and fresh hires
• Own onboarding: paperwork, equipment, accounts, first-week experience

Procurement and vendor management

• Source and negotiate with suppliers for components, hardware, test equipment and services
• Manage the import pipeline — quotes, purchase orders, customs documentation, freight, delivery tracking
• Maintain vendor records, pricing history and lead-time data
• Track inventory of critical components and flag reorder points before they bite
• Navigate defence-sector sourcing constraints, including country-of-origin considerations

Tender management

• Monitor GeM, defence, and PSU tender portals for relevant opportunities
• Own the compliance side of bid submissions — documentation, certifications, EMD, formatting, deadlines
• Maintain the reusable document library: registrations, certifications, past performance, financials
• Coordinate technical inputs from the engineering team into bid responses
• Track submission status, clarifications and outcomes

Finance and compliance

• Coordinate with the CA on bookkeeping, GST, TDS and statutory filings
• Manage invoicing, receivables follow-up and vendor payments
• Own expense management and reimbursements
• Maintain budget tracking and burn visibility for the founders
• Keep company registrations, licences and certifications current

Operations and founder support

• Manage office logistics, equipment, travel and field-trip coordination
• Prepare briefing material, decks and documentation for external meetings
• Track action items across the business and chase them to closure
• Handle scheduling and correspondence where it needs founder-level judgement
• Be the person who notices what is about to fall over

What we are looking for

Required

• 2–5 years in operations, business operations, EA-plus, or a generalist startup role
• Demonstrated ownership of processes end to end, not just execution of someone else's checklist
• Strong written English — much of this job is documents, emails and submissions where precision matters
• Comfort with spreadsheets and structured record-keeping
• Genuine attention to detail; tender rejections and customs holds are usually caused by small errors
• Willingness to work on-site and to travel occasionally for field trials and vendor visits

Who fits here

• You are comfortable with ambiguity and do not need a manager to unblock you
• You would rather build a system once than do the task manually twelve times
• You are direct — you flag problems early rather than hoping they resolve
• You take ownership of outcomes, not activities

Karta Innovations is an equal opportunity employer.