Operations Manager

🌱Lead with Purpose, Deliver with Impact

At Austep, we believe real success balances people, planet, and places alongside profit.

As our Operations Manager, you won't just manage projects. You’ll use your technical expertise to lead our next phase of growth and multiply our impact.

If you’re a leader ready to elevate teams, shape projects, and carry forward a mission bigger than profit, this is where you belong.

COMPANY PROFILE

Austep Eco Pty Ltd is a certified B Corp and Social Traders energy efficiency company, with plans to grow into a full suite ESCO over time.

We deliver turnkey commercial energy efficiency upgrades (historically focused on LED lighting, heat pump hot water, and energy audits).

We also have a second arm which acts as Australia's only Social Traders Certified Lighting Wholesaler; targeting Tier1 contractors and spec grade lighting. We operate with a highly efficient offshore team in the Philippines handling backend engineering and admin, requiring a highly charismatic, Brisbane-based leader to manage front-end client liaison and project execution.

THE ROLE: OPERATIONS MANAGER

We are seeking a high-achieving, deeply ethical, and experienced leader with a technical background to drive Austep’s growth and break the CEO's key-person dependency. We need someone who knows more than we do - a leader who will step in, teach, direct, and elevate the business.

HARD SKILLS & EXPERIENCE (NON-NEGOTIABLE)

Scale: Managed or sold multiple $1m+ projects.

Technical Volume: Has been directly involved in 50+ lighting projects, and 50+ hot water projects.

Logistics: Has successfully delivered or sold multi-site rollouts for clients with 10+ sites.

Leadership: Proven senior leadership or business ownership experience.

Construction project management: Ideally with a multi-trade background.

SOFT SKILLS & VALUES

Elite People Skills: Intensely committed to customer service. Must easily build rapport to counter any "offshoring" stigma and consistently generate glowing client testimonials.

High Achiever: A track record of major life achievements outside of work (e.g., started businesses, multiple degrees, authored books, invented technologies, run marathons).

Growth Mindset: Voracious reader (books/podcasts), independent conference attendee, constantly challenging the status quo and pushing boundaries.

Deeply Impact-Minded: Actively embodies low-impact living. We are looking for people who are vegetarian, cycle, avoid fast fashion/packaging, volunteer, or consistently donate a % of their income (familiarity with Effective Altruism is highly regarded).

Mission-Driven: Passionate about Energy Efficiency and/or Social Enterprise.

Execution over Perfection: Must actively counter the CEO's tendency to over-engineer by driving practical, timely delivery.

Galvaniser & Enabler: Naturally gifted at rallying a team and pushing projects forward.

OPERATIONS & PROJECT MANAGEMENT KPIS

Timelines: Maintain a high volume of client calls while completing projects promptly, with deadlines closely aligned to planned schedules.

Client Satisfaction: Ensure clients feel well supported, with consistently positive feedback and strong satisfaction ratings.

Projects Complete: Deliver expected annual gross project profit to cover wage + contribute to company overheads + profit. You can also ‘double dip’ e.g. if a sale is both ‘sold’ and then ‘project managed’ by you, you can count the gross profit twice.

Project Profitability: Ensure projects deliver strong gross profit margins with minimal variance from planned budgets.

OH&S and Quality: Maintain safety, quality control and compliance.

Sales Won: Support the sales and estimating team, actively drive client calls, and be directly involved in winning projects that achieve expected annual gross profit.

TEAM EFFICIENCY & LEADERSHIP: Reduce CEO dependency:

• Act as a bridge between sales and project management. Manage day-to-day operations.
• Recommend and implement 1-5 process improvements per year.
• Support sales team.
• Provide high-level oversight of estimating processes.
• Mentor and lead 2–5 direct reports through regular one‑on‑ones and performance reviews, supporting growth and guiding improvement.
• Drive profitability by improving efficiency in labour and supplier relationships.