Operations Lead

Operations Lead – Geospatial & Field Data Collection

• Location: Portugal - remote
• Employment Type: Full-Time, Shift-Flexible (Aligning with Western/Central European field hours)
• Reports To: Program Operations Manager / Client Delivery Director

Position Summary

A global market leader is seeking an agile, tech-savvy Operations Lead to oversee daily ground operations for a high-profile, global mapping client. In this role, you will lead a distributed nearshore team responsible for managing 20 to 25 on-ground drivers and partner resources executing street-level imagery and LiDAR data collection across primary European markets (including UK, FR, DE, IT, and PL).

The ideal candidate bridges the gap between logistical flight-control and tech troubleshooting—ensuring that field drivers maximize daily target mileage, maintain strict safety and local privacy protocols, and navigate shifting regional weather patterns besides owning agreed SLA & KPI’s.

Key Responsibilities

1. Fleet & Driver Resource Management

• Daily Flight Control: Act as the primary central command for 20–25 on-ground driver partners across multiple European countries; monitor daily check-ins, shift starts, and route progression.
• Target & Route Optimization: Coordinate with regional partner teams to assign and optimize pre-planned driving tracks, maximizing area coverage based on client-defined points of interest (POIs) and seasonal sunlight windows.
• Vendor Governance: Manage performance SLAs with local vehicle and driver provisioning partners, ensuring low attrition, on-time onboarding, and swift resource replacement.

2. Technical Operations & Data Ingestion

• Hardware & Sensor Support: Serve as the first line of operational support for vehicle-mounted specialized equipment (360° cameras, LiDAR arrays, onboard computer systems, and GPS trackers).
• Data Pipeline Management: Oversee the secure extraction, logging, and physical/digital shipping logistics of high-volume Solid State Drives (SSDs) containing captured imagery back to client processing centers.
• Quality Assurance Monitoring: Review automated imagery health diagnostics to catch equipment anomalies (e.g., lens smudges, camera misalignment, data corruption) early, minimizing the need for costly target reruns.

3. Compliance, Weather, & Risk Management

• Weather Dynamic Routing: Monitor regional European weather patterns in real-time, dynamically pivoting driver targets to avoid rain, snow, or poor light conditions that violate image quality thresholds.
• Regulatory Compliance: Maintain strict adherence to local European driving regulations, commercial vehicle restrictions, and privacy laws (such as GDPR mandates regarding street photography and sensitive zones).
• Incident Management: Serve as the escalation point for field incidents, including vehicle accidents, equipment theft, or local authority inquiries, ensuring rapid reporting via client protocols.

4. Reporting & Stakeholder Communication

• Maintain daily and weekly operational dashboards tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) including linear kilometers driven, drive up-time, data upload success rates, and vendor spend.
• Lead weekly syncs with the client’s internal geospatial engineering and project management teams.

Qualifications & Skills

Required Experience:

• Professional Footprint: 3 to 5 years of experience in Logistics Operations, Fleet Management, Last-Mile Delivery Control, or BPO Field Ops Management. Experience specifically dealing with mapping/geospatial operations or field data collection is highly preferred.
• Team Leadership: Proven experience managing a team of at least 15+ remote, mobile, or distributed field resources across multiple countries.
• Technical Aptitude: Tech-savvy mindset with the ability to learn complex internal client tools, diagnose basic hardware/software sensor faults, and coordinate remote system resets.

Soft Skills & Language Matrix:

• Languages: Professional fluency in English (C1/C2 written and spoken) is mandatory. Professional proficiency in at least one other major European language (German, French, Italian, or Polish) is heavily favored.
• Problem Solving: Exceptional capability to handle fluid, chaotic field variables (e.g., a car breaks down in Munich, a hard drive is lost in Paris, or sudden rain hits Milan simultaneously).

Tools & Technical Familiarity:

• Experience tracking assets via various platforms and fleet dashboards.
• Proficiency with tracking suites (Geo tracking or proprietary client ticketing tools) and data collaboration tools (Google Workspace).

Performance Indicators (KPIs for Success)

• Target Mileage Attainment: Percentage of assigned regional grid coverage successfully completed per week.
• Data Freshness & Loss Prevention: Minimizing data re-shoot rates due to undetected equipment defects or weather violations.
• Fleet Up-Time: Keeping driver utilization rates above 90% through proactive asset management and partner accountability.