Senior Paper Operations Specialist
The Knot Worldwide · United States · hybrid
ABOUT US
In more than ten countries around the world, The Knot Worldwide champions the power of celebration. Our global family of brands provide best-in-class products, services and content to take celebration planning from inspiration to action. At the core of our business is our industry-leading global online wedding Vendor Marketplace, connecting couples with local wedding professionals and a comprehensive suite of personalized wedding websites, planning tools, invitations, and registry services that make wedding planning easier for couples around the globe. Each year, we connect more than 4.5 million users with around 900,000 global small businesses through our Vendor Marketplace.
LIFE AT TKWW
At The Knot Worldwide, we believe in doing work that matters. Each year, we help millions of couples around the world celebrate life’s most meaningful moments, while also helping hundreds of thousands of global small business owners get discovered and scale. Life here means working alongside a team that cares deeply, not just about the work you do, but about the life you live. We prioritize employee well-being and development through meaningful opportunities for growth, and we celebrate milestones and wins in a big way. After all, celebrations are what we do best.
About the Role and Our Team
The Senior Paper Operations Specialist is responsible for ensuring operational excellence across order fulfillment, shipping, and printer partnerships. As a critical Individual Contributor (IC), this role serves as the central point of coordination between Customer Experience (CX), Printers, Carriers, and internal product/engineering teams to identify issues, implement reporting and controls, and drive continuous improvements in quality, service levels, and cost efficiency.
Through strong partnership management, data-driven reporting, and proactive issue resolution, you will help deliver a reliable, high-quality customer experience at scale. You will provide essential operational insights, proactively identify risks and opportunities, manage day-to-day financial operations for print vendors, and serve as a trusted operational partner to cross-functional teams.
Key Responsibilities
Financial & Administrative Operations
- Manage new vendor onboarding and collaborate closely with cross-functional partners (Legal, Accounts Payable, Procurement, and Data).
- Oversee contract execution, renewals, and Purchase Order (PO) creation for vendor partners.
- Manage monthly and bi-weekly billing processes, royalty tracking (e.g., Netflix, VW), and overall payment tracking.
- Conduct detailed reviews and tracking of monthly printer invoice fees to ensure accuracy.
Printer Partnership & Capacity Management
- Establish and monitor printer facility capacity and operational risks, escalating issues and implementing remediation plans as needed.
- Monitor product inventory (including sample kits and envelopes) and coordinate production and replenishments.
- Partner with printers to support peak and holiday operations, ensuring total readiness and rapid issue resolution during high-volume periods.
- Support the onboarding of new fulfillment facilities, ensuring strict alignment on shipping standards, processes, and service level agreements (SLAs).
- Manage special order needs and custom requests (e.g., Marketing requests).
Shipping & Carrier Management
- Manage day-to-day shipping carrier relationships (including Core Trust and FedEx), serving as the primary point of contact for service-level issues and escalations.
- Project management across CX, Product, Engineering, and Business teams when shipping escalations occur to mitigate negative impacts on the customer experience.
- Oversee the submission, tracking, and resolution of shipping claims for damaged, late, or lost orders; identify patterns to influence operational changes.
- Track and analyze shipping costs continuously to identify risks, trends, and financial optimization opportunities.
Customer Experience & Order Issue Management
- Partner closely with Customer Experience (CX) and Printers to investigate, resolve, and prevent recurring order issues.
- Drive recommendations for on-site, product development, and printer optimizations to continuously enhance the customer experience based on direct findings.
- Conduct regular on-site and system-based quality controls to ensure the accuracy of information, ease of use, and overall functionality of the shipping experience.
- Review Voice of Customer (VOC) feedback systematically to understand customer challenges and identify recurring shipping/fulfillment pain points.
UAT, Testing & Cross-Functional Enablement
- Facilitate the preparation and execution of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) between external printer partners and internal engineering teams.
- Communicate testing plans, timelines, required resources, and payload requirements clearly to all stakeholders.
- Establish comprehensive test plans for new features and products, ensuring appropriate participation and coverage across teams.
- Act as the primary liaison between external printer partners and internal teams to ensure smooth testing, feedback collection, and rapid issue resolution.
- Establish and maintain operational controls, escalation frameworks, and decision criteria to proactively manage fulfillment, shipping, and partner risks.
- Identify systemic operational gaps and lead root-cause analyses that drive durable, cross-functional solutions rather than temporary fixes.
- Anticipate downstream customer, cost, and capacity impacts of product changes, partner shifts, or volume fluctuations, and raise risks early to leadership.
Reporting, Analytics & Insights
- Own reporting and analysis related to order issues, ship time performance, and non-billable costs (working alongside reporting support to surface trends and inform improvements).
- Develop reprint reporting to better understand customer issues, print quality, and discrepancies.
- Translate operational insights into clear, actionable recommendations that influence roadmaps, prioritization, and release readiness.
- Frame data-driven narratives that help leaders understand tradeoffs and make informed decisions, ensuring reporting answers the "why" and "what next," rather than just the "what happened."
Requirements & Qualifications
- Experience Level: 5–7 years of progressive experience in e-commerce operations, fulfillment, print production, supply chain, carrier management, or a related operational function, ideally in a Senior IC capacity.
- Operational & Vendor Management: Proven experience managing external vendors and operational partners, including printers, suppliers, and/or carriers. Experience managing SLAs, resolving escalations, driving vendor accountability, and building strong working relationships.
- Financial & Contract Operations: Hands-on experience with vendor onboarding, invoice reconciliation, purchase orders, contract renewals, billing, and vendor cost analysis. Demonstrated ability to identify discrepancies, manage operational controls, and identify cost-saving or margin-improvement opportunities.
- Data & Analytics: Strong proficiency in Excel/Google Sheets and operational reporting, with the ability to analyze large datasets, identify trends and root causes, and translate findings into clear recommendations. Experience with SQL, BI tools, or other data-analysis tools is a plus.
- Order Lifecycle & Customer Experience: Strong understanding of the end-to-end e-commerce order lifecycle, including production, fulfillment, shipping, delivery, reprints, claims, and order exceptions. Ability to connect operational issues to customer experience and business impact.
- UAT & Technical Operations: Experience partnering with Product and Engineering teams on UAT, integrations, system changes, and operational troubleshooting. Ability to translate operational requirements into clear test plans, requirements, and accep