Business Operations Associate

What is Coast Coast is re-imagining the trillion-dollar U.S. B2B card payments infrastructure, with a focus on the country’s 500,000 commercial fleets, 40 million commercial vehicles, and many millions of commercial drivers. The incumbent technologies that cater to these customers are decades old, and businesses with fleets increasingly demand modern digital experiences and transparent financial services products. Coast’s mission is to deliver this at a transformational scale, beginning with the Coast Fleet and Fuel Card built on a cutting-edge spend management platform. About the Role Coast’s biggest initiatives cross every team. You’ll own them: get the right people aligned, keep the work moving, and make sure it lands. As a Business Operations Associate, that someone is you. You’ll own and run cross-functional projects tied to Coast’s top priorities, from first scoping to final handoff. You’ll work with leaders across the company, so you’ll need to be credible with executives and just as comfortable in the details with the people doing the work. AI is a big part of how we do this. You’ll use it to plan faster, synthesize information, draft and analyze, and automate the repetitive parts of project work. You’ll also run projects that put AI to use across the business. You don’t need to be an engineer. You do need to be the person who reaches for AI first, and who can tell when it’s doing a good job and when it isn’t. This is a role for someone who gets energy from turning an ambiguous goal into a clear plan, getting a dozen people aligned, and shipping. You’ll be expected to act like an owner: you take responsibility for the outcome, not just your piece of it. It’s a generalist role with broad exposure to how a growth-stage fintech runs. Over time, you can build depth in an area you care about and take on bigger parts of the business as it scales. What You’ll Do Own cross-functional projects end to end • Run company-level and cross-team initiatives from scoping through launch: define the goal, build the plan, line up owners, set milestones, and drive it to done. • Keep projects moving across teams that don’t report to you. You get things unstuck by making the next step obvious and the tradeoffs clear. • Spot risks and dependencies early, raise them with a recommendation, and keep leaders informed without making them chase you. • Close projects properly: document what shipped, what you learned, and what happens next. Be the connective tissue across the company • Work with Product, Sales, Finance, Risk, Legal, People, and Operations to make sure the right people are in the room and decisions get made. • Translate between teams. Take a goal from an executive and break it into work others can act on, and take messy ground-level input and turn it into something leadership can decide on. • Run the cadences that keep cross-functional work on track: kickoffs, standups, status updates, and retros. • Support quarterly planning and goal tracking by turning priorities into projects with owners and dates. Help figure out what we should do next • Scope and evaluate new opportunities, such as a new process, partnership, or initiative, and bring leaders a clear recommendation backed by the numbers. • Build the analyses and decision frameworks that help leadership prioritize and decide where to put time and money. • Take ideas from “this could work” to a pilot, then to something the company runs. Use AI to move faster and to help the company use it • Use AI in your own project work: planning, synthesizing inputs from many teams, drafting, analysis, and status reporting. Build repeatable workflows and prompts that cut the manual work out of running a project. • Run projects that bring AI into how Coast operates, from piloting a new tool to redesigning a process around automation, and measure whether it worked. • Evaluate new AI tools against real problems and give a clear recommendation on what we should adopt and what we should skip. • Share what works. Write it down and teach other teams. Bring data to the decisions • Define what success looks like for each project and track it with real numbers. • Pull and analyze data to size problems, test assumptions, and measure results. • Build simple, clear updates and dashboards that show leaders where a project stands. What Success Looks Like By 30 days • You know the company’s current priorities, the key leaders, and how decisions get made. • You’ve taken over one active project and the people on it know you’re the person to go to. By 90 days • You’ve run a cross-functional project from start to finish, and the teams involved would work with you again. • Leaders get clear, regular project updates from you and don’t need to ask where things stand. • You’ve used AI to take real time out of how you run projects, and you can show how. By 6 months • You’re running multiple projects at once without things slipping. • You’ve led at least one project that put AI to work in the business, with a measured result. • Executives trust you with high-priority, high-visibility work. • Teams use the project templates, cadences, and playbooks you built. Requirements • 2-4 years in business operations, project or program management, strategy and operations, consulting, or a similar role. Fintech, SaaS, or financial services is preferred. • Proven track record of running cross-functional projects with many stakeholders and shipping them on time. • AI-native mindset: you already use AI tools in your daily work, you’ve built something with them (a workflow, an automation, an agent, a prompt library), and you’re excited to push further. • Strong structured thinking: you can take an ambiguous problem and turn it into a clear plan. • Excellent written and verbal communication. You can brief an executive in two minutes and write the doc that gets a team aligned. • Strong analytical instincts: comfortable with data, spreadsheets, and spotting trends, and able to turn them into a recommendation. SQL and low-code tools are a plus, and you’re willing to learn them. • High ownership mindset: you spot problems before they’re assigned and drive them to done. • Track record of moving fast and finding smarter ways to reach the outcome, and teammates who’d gladly work with you again. • Organized and process-driven; able to juggle multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced environment. • Comfortable influencing without authority and working with people at every level. If you don’t match every requirement, apply anyway. We care most about how you think and how you deliver. What You’ll Get • Real ownership. You’ll run projects tied to the company’s top priorities, with your name on the outcome. • Working time with leaders across the company, and a front-row view of how a growth-stage fintech makes decisions. • Hands-on AI work. You’ll use it every day and help decide how the whole company uses it. • A fast path to more scope as you prove yourself. Compensation and Benefits Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for our size and industry, and are one part of our total compensation package that also includes benefits and equity. Pay decisions are based on a number of factors, including scope and qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, and balancing internal equity relative to other Coast employees. We expect the majority of candidates who are offered roles at Coast to fall healthily within the range based on these factors. Salary range: $85,000 - $110,000 annually Equity Grant: Meaningful potential upside given Coast’s early-stage trajectory Benefits Overview: • Medical, dental and vision insurance • Flexible paid time off (vacation, personal well being, paid holidays) • Tools to help manage your financial wellness, including webinars, access to an equity tax advisory service, and company-sponsored 401(k) • Paid parental leave • $400 accessories allowance (a keyboard, mouse, headphones, etc.) • Education stipend • Free lunch every Friday Coast is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are building a diverse and inclusive environment, so we encourage people of all backgrounds to apply. We’re an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, disability, national origin, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. Check out the latest podcast interview on Fintech Layer Cake with Coast Founder Daniel Simon!